Chapter sixteen
MarylandOn the sixteenth of June, Robert E. Lee’s forward column crossed the Potomac into the open, green fields of Maryland. The Union army followed along a wide parallel line, careful to stay between Washington and Lee. The preliminary reports reaching Wilmington of Lee’s invasion of the North were apparently true. Franklin Taylor, for one, saw with his own eyes how swift the advance was.
Fear spread throughout the state as the seventy-thousand-strong Rebel force devoured unripe corn crops. They seized horses, cattle, clothing, food, grain, and wagons from civilians, paying for them in useless Confederate scrip. Taylor remembered the first, less-aggressive invasion of the North in 1862, when Lee was hoping for allies in Maryland. This time the soldiers showed no mercy.
