Maryland in the American Civil War Maryland in the American Civil War During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states, straddling the South and North. Because of its strategic location, bordering the national capital city of Washington D.C. with its District of Columbia since 1790, and the strong desire of the opposing factions within the state to sway public opinion towards their respective causes, Maryland played an important role in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Newly elected 16th President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, served 1861-1865), suspended the constitutional right of "habeas corpus" in Maryland; and he dismissed the U.S.
Names of the American Civil War American flag". Given that in the free states non-Yankee groups – Germans, Dutch-Americans, New York Irish and southern-leaning settlers in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois – showed majority opposition to waging the Civil War, other Confederate sympathizers have used the name "War of Yankee Aggression" or "Great War of Yankee Aggression" to indicate the Civil War as a Yankee war, not a Northern war "per se". Conversely, the "War of Southern Aggression" has been used by those who maintain that the Confederacy was the belligerent party. They maintain the thought that the Confederacy started the war when they initiated combat at