Maryland as the feat of war.--her exemption Papers dispatched.
A few days since, just before Lee announced his northward march, the Baltimore American, an object abolition sheet, published a two columned editorial, pointing with malignant exultation to the desolation that had visited Virginia during the war, and congratulates Maryland on having "remained loyal" to the United States, and thus secured by its protection complete immunity from the horrors of war upon her own soil. The latest advices from Maryland show that the Confederates in large force are fortifying their position, and that for a time at least that State will find that its, "great protector. "is powerless to save it. The article from the American is fresher and more appropriate to-day than the day it was published, and decidedly more interesting to the Confederate reader. We give an extract;The people of Maryland in the hurry of great events, and in the sense of almost absolute security which has been extended to the State by the strong arm of the Federal Government, will probably never wholly realize how many horrors and losses they have escaped, such as have fallen with terrible and crushing severity upon other States, such as Missouri and Kentucky, so situated as to be made a part of the battle ground in the great conflict forced upon the nation. When the signal for strite was first sounded here, when, by the sudden arming of traitors, the commercial metropolis of our State was all at once isolated, and in course of speedy preparation to be handed over to the chiefs of the great conspiracy, the conviction was for the moment forced upon the minds of all that here was to be the centre of the destructive tornade of civil war; that here must be the region destined, so long as the bloody strife might be prolonged, to be the very battle ground of the two sections.
Fortunately for us, however, the very highest interests of the nation demanded that its Capital should be permanently protected; that it should be made, incidentally, the great and effective barrier in this direction against those rebel armies which speedily threatened the whole border. And so it was, that every national resource was strained to protect points just south of us. To accomplish this, tens of thousands wended their way past our doors, to drive back the invaders at all approaches; whilst Fortress Monroe being firmly held, gunboats and all the appliances of naval war fare were made at home in our spacious bay. All this is matter of record, and should be kept vividly in remembrance at all times; yet so accustomed are we to look upon this fortunate or providential system of cause and effect as only a matter of course, that we have once in a while to be reminded of our marvelous exemption from the horrors and suffering which might have been our lot by referring to some narrative of what has occurred elsewhere.
And the fate of Missouri has been, measurably, the fate of Kentucky also; a State which never omitted an opportunity to protest against the doctrines of secession and all their evil brood, yet which failed to maintain that peace and prosperity within its borders which, with a brief interval, has been conceded to Maryland. And still the war goes on, with its evils and its sufferings; but the blessed immunity from these ought not to make us so selfish as to forget our duty toward the Government and toward other suffering localities. Glancing anew at the old causes and their palpable effects, let us go forward with every means at our disposal to help rescue the vast regions yet held in thrall to a heartless and bloody tyranny; let us signalize to the end of the conflict that gratitude we feel for our fortunate escape. It is true the management of the war may not be all that we could wish, yet that can afford no excuse for any dereliction of duty in Maryland. Her soil has, at all events, been held almost sacred against the foot of a ruthless invader, and however States like Missouri and Kentucky might complain, our own should only exult at any opportunity to testify the obligations that are due. We have escaped, and it is satisfactory to know, and feel that we shall continue to escape so long as the National Government maintains its own existence. --Its salvation in ours, most emphatically, and no citizen in it should ever lose sight of a fact so all important, upon which, in truth, all we are and have depends. Let us, then, stand by our great protector, no matter who else may waver and prove false.
