*

(Catalogue, page 1241.)

Report of claim of Anna Ella Carroll. Representative E. S. Bragg.
March 3, 1881. House report No. 386, 46th Congress, 3d session, vol.
II.

Note.--Most of these only to be seen by consulting the bound volumes
in the Congressional Library.

* * * * *

(All the following letters, reports, etc., concerning Miss Carroll's
literary and military services are reproduced from these Congressional
documents.)

[Illustration: Thomas A. Scott]

CHAPTER III.

RISE OF THE SECESSION MOVEMENT -- THE CAPITAL IN DANGER -- MISS
CARROLL'S LITERARY LABORS FOR THE CAUSE OF THE UNION -- TESTIMONIALS
FROM EMINENT MEN.

"On the election of Mr. Lincoln, in 1860, the safety of the Union was
felt to be in peril and its perpetuity to depend on the action of the
border slave States, and, from her geographical position, especially
on Maryland.

In the cotton States the Breckenridge party had conducted the canvass
on the avowed position that the election of a sectional President--as
they were pleased to characterize Mr. Lincoln--would be a virtual
dissolution of the "compact of the Union;" whereupon it would become
the duty of all the Southern States to assemble in "sovereign
convention" for the purpose of considering the question of their
separate independence.

In Maryland the Breckenridge electors assumed the same position, and
as the Legislature was under the control of that party, it was
understood that could it assemble they would at once provide for a
convention for the purpose of formally withdrawing from the Union. The
sessions, however, were biennial, and could only be convened by
authority of the Governor. It therefore seemed for the time that the
salvation of the Union was in the hands of Governor Hicks. Although
he had opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln and all his sympathies were
on the side of slavery, his strong point was devotion to the Union.
With this conviction, founded upon long established friendship, Miss
Carroll believed she might render some service to her country, and
took her stand with him at once for the preservation of the Union,
come weal or woe to the institution of slavery.

Governor Hicks had been elected some three years before as the
candidate of the American party, and to the publications Miss Carroll
had contributed to that canvass he largely attributed his election. It
was therefore natural that when entering on the fierc