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A Willful Lie

Summary

A writer in the Hagerstown Herald has claimed that when the 1st MD Regt. passed through Middletown it seized Federal flags from the citizens. Actually, says the Valley Register, the flags were freely given for the use of the Federal soldiers, while the Home Guards stand ready to help put down the traitors' efforts to drag MD into the rebellion.

Transcript

A WILLFUL LIE.
To the absence of the editor of the Frederick Herald, who has been missing for a week past and is supposed to be among the rebels in Virginia, some anonymous scribbler this week appropriates the use of the columns of the Secession sheet to the promulgation of many scandalous falsehoods, among which is a statement that the First Maryland Regiment while passing through this place “took down all the Federal flags they could ‘lay their hands on, while the Union shriekers[sic] there had to stand quietly by and suffer themselves to be despoiled of their glorious Stars and Stripes’ without daring to utter a word against the gross outrage,” and asks where “these blood and thunder Home Guards were, who have been uttering such dire threats against the Legislature of Maryland, and why they were not there to defend their property and prevent this insult to their town”
We have only to say that this statement is truly false in every particular. On the day that the Maryland First passed through here, there were at least fifty flags displayed from the houses of as many of our loyal citizens, not a single one of which was taken down by any member of the Regiment without the consent of the owner. It is true, about a half dozen were asked for, and were cheerfully given, as they should have been to those enlisted in the subjugation of traiters[sic] and rebellious spirits; the others are seen to-day, and can be seen every day, waving from the houses of the loyal and patriotic citizens of old Middletown.
The fact is, the Maryland First demeaned themselves most admirably in Middletown, much better, we believe, than it were possible for the author of the slanderous article in the Herald, with an equal number of men selected from the Tory ranks in Maryland, to do.
As to the inquiry where the Home Guard were, we can inform the querist that many of them were in town, joyfully witnessing the march of the portion of the country’s defenders to victory; and, moreover, they are still here, ready to a man, to resist, even to the death, the efforts of the traitors in Maryland to drag our noble little State into rebellion and utter ruin.