LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 Conservation Resources 
 
E 458 
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 .P64 
 Copy 1 
 
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 JULY 4, 1861. 
 
 The mission of woinnn, has ever been a holy work, con- 
 secratod by that patient suffering, which calls forth a world's 
 sympathy for her gentle fortitude. Has her claim ceased, 
 that her agonizing cries are no longer heard, and is that care 
 vouchsafed from the beginning, forever closed to her sorrows ? 
 
 To you, our once great Nation's Chieftain, we call aloud 
 in bitter anguish, to stay the strife which now desolates, our 
 homes, and gives to America a bereaved sisterhood. To you 
 we appeal, as the guardian of our once unstained and spotless 
 Banner, to still those waves of passion, which surge over our 
 unhappy land, sundering our dearest ties. As Man, endowed 
 by the giver of good with all that station values, as Hus- 
 band, whose heart beats responsive to woman's love, as 
 Father, the gentle whisperings of whose children cannot be 
 forgotten in times going; by the memory of our holy dead, 
 whose liuished voices speak again through our tears, we appeal, 
 with all the earnestness of a grief more sore than any en- 
 lightened woman has ever borne. The unclosed graves now 
 open for their victims, you can deny their tenants ! 
 
 We claim, to know no distinction in party broils, as the pure 
 clement of the nation's greatness ; we demand, in appealing, 
 that protection God has entrusted to man in our behalf. Are 
 only sorrows to be meted us ? Has party strife, for gold's gain, 
 obliterated all sense of right? Can the wail of our anguish 
 for all ties rent, by the ruthless violence of men, forgetful that 
 they are formed in God's imago be unheard ? Have we no 
 natural rights? Husband, Son, and Brother, torn from their 
 our homes, and incarcerated in the decaying atmosphere 
 of a military prison, each day taking from us all that supports 
 life ! We call upon you to arise in the majesty of Freedom's 
 chieftain, and restore our fettered nation to its primal great- 
 ness. 
 
 The halo of woman's prayers will encircle with its radianeo 
 the closing years of a life now far waning to its end, and will 
 bear up on high the record of love to plead for that blessed 
 eternity promised by the cross. 
 
 The children perfected in your art have gone sorrowfully 
 
 to the stern duty of its use, (necessitated upon them), but 
 would gladly lay aside the bloody weapons of defense, and turn 
 in grateful happiness to your outstretched arms. The good 
 and noble Lee upon the tropic plains of Mexico placed the 
 fairest leaflet in the laurel which adorns your brow ; the great 
 Johnston gave the victorious Cerro Gordo to the glorious 
 galaxy of your battles; Beauregard, whose mighty intellect is 
 impressed by the Divine E.sscnce with the mysterious know- 
 ledge of "numbered science;'" Davis, the loved Davis, 
 whose name is a talisman of virtue, to whom a suffering peo- 
 ple cling. These are the sons of your training ! These the 
 comrades of your battles. Let the clustering years of your 
 age be vfreathed with the hallelujahs of an enfranchised peo- 
 ple! We plead as those perishing, for that Peace, which your 
 might alone can give ; rising above the wicked machinations 
 of the recreant to high Heaven's mandates, cast off the petty 
 spirit of party jealousy, and give to us that blessed Peace 
 whose rays illumine the inner sanctuary of the Most Holy. 
 Can our unhappy land give you back for the labor of your 
 earning, a greater boon, than the brightened page of History, 
 whose inscription transmits the cessation of that carnage so 
 unnatural and so fearful the world looks on in horror ? 
 
 Can the emblazoned record of any victory confer a greater 
 glory than this legacy of Peace ? Can the angelic host who 
 watch, lay upon the altar of your God an offering more pure? 
 
 As the Daughters of that State whose men in solemn leg- 
 islative council fearlessly protested that her soil should not be 
 profaned by the tread of martial feet, led on to devastate the 
 domestic sanctuaries of the " Old Dominion." We implore 
 you by all you value in Time's great Past, or hope for in un- 
 written Future, to stay the sorrows of our souls! 
 
 To you we appeal as Hope's last beacon, looking for the 
 light which can alone point to a brighter day ; and we thus 
 place upon the register of our archives, this our cry of woe, 
 whose piteous tones will be known as the appeal of the 
 
 WOMEN OF MARYLAND. 
 
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