Civil War
Divided Loyalties in Montgomery County
and along the C&O Canal in the Civil War
Provost Marshal Mortimer Moulden’s Report
by Mike Dwyer
The Union military had established a “Provost Guard” (= military police) in Rockville. When they departed, a civilian, Mortimer Moulden was appointed Provost Marshal. Moulden was a patriotic individual who took his job very seriously and was undaunted by the many southern sympathizers in the county, who included his own half brother Eli. Just days after Mosby’s Rangers attacked the 6th Michigan Cavalry at Seneca Locks, Moulden issued a scathing report about disloyal county residents aiding the confederates. The Mosby Rangers, led by William Trundle, (a county native), attacked the Union troops and destroyed their camp. After the attack the confederate force re-crossed the river, taking with them 17 prisoners, 23 horses and 5 mules. While two of Mosby’s most trusted men were killed, the Michigan unit lost four men and others were wounded.
Moulden began his report (dated June 15, 1863) saying,
I have just returned from the scene of the late rebel raid in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is almost wholly officered and worked by men having little or no sympathy for our Government, including the superintendents and lock-keepers on the line. Two very important points on the canal, the locks at the Great Falls and the Seneca locks, are in the hands of our enemies. The population along the banks of the Potomac is disloyal. There is a ford at the head of Conn island, near the Great Falls. Suppose the rebels should cross at this point, what friend is at hand to give the alarm? It is true there is a company of cavalry stationed at the Falls, but with the aid of disloyal citizens who know every curve of the river, what chance would our pickets have to give the alarm? The lock-keeper at Seneca is disloyal, and the people in the neighborhood. The rebels came over, captured the pickets and attacked the Federal cavalry there. The orderly sergeant of that company, with his last words, said that a man by the name of Lewis Cross, who lives close to the camp, displayed signal lights to the rebels from his upper chamber, thus aiding them in their marauding expedition.
The rebel sympathizers in this community are worse than ever in their hatred to the Government, and they should be made to feel that no enemies can exist in the rear. I have also learned that the Superintendent on the Washington Aqueduct, with all hands employed under him, are utterly opposed to the Government. This force of worthies is stationed at the Great Falls, where they have an opportunity of watching the movements of our troops stationed there, and are ready at a moment’s warning to act with the rebels in capturing or destroying them. The Potomac is very low at this time, and the bands of Mosby and White have a great many men from this county who know every foot of the river as well as every crossing.
I would most respectfully suggest that none but true and loyal men be permitted to have any place of public appointment, and no rebel sympathizer should be permitted to enjoy his home who would welcome a band of cut-throats to destroy the defenders of the Government which protects him.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
M. Moulden
Provost Marshal for Montgomery County
P.S. Is the Government aware that a letter could be thrown across the River at the Falls by wrapping it around a stone, thus giving the rebels a chance to learn our movements? And there are plenty of rebel sympathizers to do it .
M.M.
As exaggerated as Moulden’s claims sound, they are supported by records recently examined at the National Archives. The case files of Lt. Levi C. Turner and Lafayette Baker contain scores of names of Montgomery County residents, who were arrested by detectives and imprisoned throughout the war. As President Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus, they had little recourse through the courts, hoping instead to prevail upon persons of influence to intervene on their behalf. Most of them protested their innocence and questioned the charges made against them. This was only human, perhaps, as many of those charged indeed appear to have aided the enemy.
In addressing the issues raised by Mortimer Moulden in his report, it appears that he was deadly accurate. At the “Big Falls,” for example where Richard Jackson was arrested, and charged with being “…a notorious secessionist, & has publicly boasted that he is the “best counterfeit Union man in existence.” “He keep [sic] a low groggery at the above place and sells liquor to our soldiers & endeavors by every means in his power to encourage our men to desert.” “He also states that he threatened to shoot a Lt. in our service on account of his endeavoring to interfere with his selling liquor to soldiers.” Capt. Pierce, 8th Ill. Cav will testify to this part of the statement.”
The document continues, “E. Green, foreman for Mr. S., is well acquainted with Jackson and knows the above statement to be true & that Hughes alias Orrick made Jackson’s his head quarters and was one of his most intimate acquaintances and associates.” (signed) Capt. Chas H. Wiswell The man mentioned was the ”Notorious” J.C. Orrick, one of Mosby’s boldest scouts who operated in the County.
In response to these accusations, Jackson offered the following,
I am fifty years of age, by occupation a boatman and reside in Great Falls, Md.. Since the breaking out of the war I have been in the employ of the government working a portion of the time as a contractor on the Washington Aqueduct. I transported sand for the aqueduct by boats on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Am acquainted intimately with the Sec. of the Interior-Hon. J.P. Usher & Gen’l Meigs for whom I have done a great deal of work. In August last a building belonging to the Gov’t on the C & O Canal at Great Falls was sold at auction & I purchased it on recommendation of Secty. Usher. I had occupied the building since April and am now living in it. I keep a sutler’s shop & boarding house. The men of battery H commanded by Capt. Fagan occupy part of the house and the officers (5 in number) board with me. I have a brother in the rebel service—I suppose he is in that service as he was soon after the war began. I have never seen him since the war broke out and I have but four children all girls. I have never been across the Potomac, but once & then I was sent by Gov’t authorities on Gov’t business. I have been arrested once before, charged with interfering with a Gov’t contractor & released. I have never sold whiskey to the soldiers. I am a loyal man. I voted for Mr. Lincoln at the last election & for the Emancipation of the slaves in Md. I have repeatedly acted as scout for our troops this side the Potomac. Was with Capt. Fagan when he was arrested. (indecipherable) & seized the salt he was trying to run across the river. Have never run any goods across the river. Have never aided or assisted to do so. I am waiting to take the Oath of Allegiance at any time as this is the only Govt. I want to serve under.
Jackson subsequently wrote that there was a woman named Cavanaugh who lived near him, who sold whiskey to the soldiers after obtaining it from a man named Garret near Offutt’s Crossroads, who bought it by the barrel in Georgetown. (This was Ashton Garrett, who lived in an old house still standing at Falls and S. Glen Roads). Jackson makes reference to Lt. Baker’s detectives and finishes with “I have left a very delicate wife and 4 girl children and no one to care for them. This will be the ruin of me and my family.” (In retrospect Jackson might have foregone a reference from General Meigs, whose son had been killed by Confederates reported erroneously to be Mosby’s Rangers.)
Moulden’s mention of disloyalty along the C & O Canal also seems to be supported by official canal correspondence. In October of 1864, after yet another Mosby raid that began at White’s Ford, Superintendent (George W.)Spates notified the Directors that many boatmen balked at moving their boats as no federal guards were in place between Muddy Branch and the Monocacy area. There had been friction between the canal officers and the military since the beginning of the war with the army claiming that many employees were offering aid to the enemy. As it turned out, county natives George Spates and Canal Company President Alfred Spates had both been arrested, but were eventually cleared and subsequently received assurances that their authority would be respected. Oddly enough, another relative, Charles W. Spates, an elderly farmer living between Darnestown and Rockville, was never arrested, despite his role in harboring and feeding members of Mosby’s scouting parties! Boatman William Aud of Poolesville was, however, sent to prison in New Jersey. His brother Fenton was also a member of Mosby’s “gang,” and family records show that William received $3,639 for damages to fencing, feed for the cavalry’s horses, and transporting Union troops on his canal boat “Ida.”
While the major military actions had for the most part moved out of the county, Washington remained a constant target of real and imagined threats. Although comparatively few in number, the bold raids by White’s and Mosby’s men became an obsession here and elsewhere. Charges against county residents for assisting the enemy during this period were of a more serious nature, and the efforts to eradicate Mosby intensified. General U.S. Grant ordered: “The families of most of Mosby’s command are known and can be collected. I think they should be taken and kept at Fort McHenry…when any of Mosby’s men are caught, hang them without trial.” Late in 1864, the governor of Maryland issued a plea for additional troops to be stationed at the river crossings to prevent recurring attacks.
A relatively minor event that took place in the peaceful Quaker village of Sandy Spring had large repercussions for a number of county residents. A party of Mosby’s men led by Marylander “Wat” Bowie were reportedly returning from an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap the governor, when they stopped at the village store of Gilpin and Bentley, and “liberated” various items at gunpoint. A sheriff’s posse of local men pursued them to the present day area of Derwood where Bowie was shot and killed from ambush. A map drawn at the time reads: ”The Rebs took the road past Emory Chapel through William Geo. Robinsons [sic] land.” By then it was surely common knowledge that young William G. Robertson was a member of Mosby’s Cavalry. While Bowie’s brother accompanied his body to the house of a farmer named Ward, the rest of the party returned to Virginia, shaken by the loss their comrade. In August, William Canby of Rose Hill farm near Sandy Spring had been arrested for giving aid to Bowie’s men. During the next several months, the feared detectives of Lafayette Baker were reported to be combing the county looking for Mosby’s men. Thomas Griffith and Frederick O. Gaither were arrested at their Unity farms based on information from Griffith’s household servant, 15-year-old Ann Elizabeth King, who reported seeing a nicely-dressed stranger visiting Edgehill, the Griffith home. The Griffith’s, who had four sons serving in the Confederate army, admitted that their sons had visited briefly during ( Maryland Confederate General) Bradley Johnson’s raid during the summer, but denied harboring the stranger who was alleged to be William George Robertson of Sunnyside. The mention of visits by Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Brown probably did not help their case, as neighbors Gus Dorsey and Ridgely Brown were officers in the 1st Maryland Cavalry, C.S.A. Other neighbors included Elisha Riggs and Thomas Lansdale, whose sons were serving with Mosby.
A military trial was conducted in Baltimore with some of the county’s most prominent citizens testifying for the defense (including Allen Bowie Davis of Greenwood and Walter M. Talbott of Waveland ( Agricultural History Farm Park). Although the testimony was contradictory, an obscure post-war account of Mosby’s Maryland activities verifies that Robinson [sic] and the “notorious” Orrick did indeed make several clandestine visits to the county during this period. It relates how Orrick dressed in civilian clothing went to Baltimore, a distance of eighteen miles, the number of miles from Unity to Baltimore.
After several witnesses admitted seeing or knowing Robertson, the prosecution charged both Griffith and Gaither with giving aid to “Robinson,” a “known rebel officer.” In reading over the transcript of the trial, it is clear that the old plantation system was doomed and that both slave and soldier would now extract their revenge. In this case, they were the same person. In an enumeration of slaves conducted by the state at war’s end, one-armed farmer Thomas Griffith included three young men from the King family that had “left with the army.”
This trial and many others like it illustrate the bitterness and economic hardship that war had engendered in county residents. While former slave owners were denied compensation, many other claims against the U.S. government were paid over the next quarter of a century. The greatest losses had been of a personal nature that had split society and family apart (Although their father had been killed by Union soldiers while attempting to protect his livestock, Silver Spring’s Wilson brothers had supported different armies from their farms opposite each other on Georgia Avenue.)
In Rockville, former Confederate Eli Moulden returned to his blacksmith trade within a block of where a monument to “the thin gray line” would eventually be dedicated. His half brother Mortimer, who had informed on so many citizens of that town as Provost Marshal, chose not to come home again. Selling his house, he took a job with the Reconstruction-era Freedmen's Bureau in Southampton County, Virginia. Southampton had been the scene of Nat Turner’s bloody slave revolt. Moulden showed great courage in standing up to those who would thwart the newly-won freedom that had come at such a terrible cost.
Sources: The official records of the Union and Confederate Armies, the Turner-Baker files at the National Archives and the papers of the late Charles Jacobs at the Montgomery County Historical Society.
Note: Mike Dwyer is a native Washingtonian. He retired as first historian for the Maryland.-National Capital Park & Planning Commission for 35 years, during which time he conducted a full--scale inventory of historic resources in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties. He authored the photographic book, Montgomery County. Mike spent a lot of his youth hiking and camping along the canal.
(This article was published in the June 2011 issue of Along The Towpath, the newsletter of the C&O Canal Association.)
