The poem resulted from events at the beginning of the
American Civil War. During the secession crisis, U.S. President
Abraham Lincoln (referred to in the poem as "the despot" and "the tyrant") ordered U.S. troops to be brought to
Washington, D.C. to protect the capital and to prepare for war with the seceding southern states. Many of these troops were brought through
Baltimore, a major transportation hub. There was considerable
Confederate sympathy in Maryland at the time; many residents opposing the use of the U.S. Army to prevent secession. Riots ensued as Union troops came through Baltimore on their way south in April 1861 and were attacked by mobs. Many Union troops and Baltimore residents were killed in the
Baltimore riots. The Maryland legislature summarized the state's ambivalent feelings when it met soon after, on April 29, voting 53–13 against secession, but also voting not to reopen rail links with the North, and requesting that Lincoln remove the growing numbers of federal troops in Maryland. One of the reported victims of these troop transport riots was Francis X. Ward, a friend of
James Ryder Randall. Randall, a native Marylander, was teaching at
Poydras College in
Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, at the time and, moved by the news of his friend's death, wrote the nine-stanza poem "Maryland, My Maryland". The poem was a plea to his home state of Maryland to
secede from the
Union and join the Confederacy. The poem contains many references to the
Revolutionary War as well as to the
Mexican–American War and Maryland figures in that war (many of whom have fallen into obscurity). It was first published in the
New Orleans Sunday Delta. The poem was quickly turned into a song—put to the tune of "Lauriger Horatius"—by Baltimore resident Jennie Cary, sister of
Hetty Cary. It became instantly popular in Maryland, aided by a
series of unpopular federal actions there and throughout the
South. It was sometimes called "the
Marseillaise of the South".
Confederate States Army bands played the song after they crossed into Maryland territory during the
Maryland Campaign in 1862. By 1864, the
Southern Punch noted that the song was "decidedly most popular" among the "claimants of a national song" for the Confederacy. According to some accounts, General
Robert E. Lee ordered his troops to sing "Maryland, My Maryland" as they entered the town of
Frederick, Maryland, but his troops received a cold response, as Frederick was located in the unionist western portion of the state. At least one Confederate regimental band also played the song as Lee's troops retreated across the Potomac after the bloody
Battle of Antietam. During the War, a version of the song was written with lyrics that supported the
U.S. cause. After the War, author
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. compared "Maryland, My Maryland" with "
John Brown's Body" as the two most popular songs from the opposing sides in the early months of the conflict. Each side, he wrote, had "a sword in its hand, each with a song in its mouth". The songs indicated as well their respective audiences, according to Holmes: "One is a hymn, with ghostly imagery and anthem-like ascription. The other is a lyric poem, appealing chiefly to local pride and passion." ==Lyrics==