(Melchizedek Communique, MC060111) Ladies and Gentlemen, the main event! Here in one corner we have Ms. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, fiery dame of Maryland. In the opposite corner we have Ms. Anna Ella Carroll, fiery dame of Maryland. The two will battle on opposite sides in a great Civil War. Let the match begin!

Contender #1: Ms. Rose O'Neal Greenhow. When she thought of her own State of Maryland - where sleep the manes of her ancestors - she burned with indignation. Taking pen in hand, Ms. Greenhow wrote, "No voice of inspiration is needed to point where this nation is drifting. The crimes which have disgraced other lands, from the contemplation of which humanity shrinks appalled, will yet be enacted here. A people do not sink at once from the height of prosperity, and power, and civilisation, to the lowest abyss of lawless despotism, without some spasmodic attempts at counteraction. But the systematic efforts at demoralisation will soon be apparent: the public taste will become vitiated; the voice of conscience will be smothered by the craving for excitement; fanaticism will assume the guise of patriotism, and under that sacred name the rights of civilisation will be trampled under foot."
    Ms. Greenhow, like many of the Rebs, is of the Catholic faith. She deemed it important that the political intrigues then going on at Washington should be clearly understood by the Confederate Government; and as she might almost be said to have assisted at Lincoln's Cabinet Councils, from the facilities she enjoyed, having verbatim reports of them as well as of the Republican caucus, she was thoroughly competent to the task of giving a faithful synopsis of their deliberations. [1]
    And so it was that Rose O'Neal Greenhow gave to General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard information which enabled him to concentrate the widely scattered Confederate forces in time to meet Union General Irvin McDowell on the field of Manassas, and there, with General Joseph E. Johnston, to win for the South the all-important battle of Bull Run. [2]

Contender #2: Ms. Anna Ella Carroll. In Maryland, and elsewhere, the English monarch and his court had derived large incomes from the sale of slaves and so canceled every law made by the early settlers to prevent their introduction into the colony. The servants (slaves) had their own rivalries and class distinctions. But all the house servants considered themselves vastly superior to the field hands and treated them with condescension. (This is like the government employees, who look down upon the lesser slaves.) At the very outset of the Civil War, Ms. Carroll fully realized that slavery was at the root of the rebellion, and she at once liberated her own slaves and devoted her time, her pen, and all her resources to the maintenance of the National cause. [3]
    Raised Episcopalian, Anna Ella always inclined to the Westminster Confession. Anna Ella Carroll frequently visited her friends at Washington, and early commenced an extended relation with the press, writing usually anonymously on the political subjects of the day. In 1857 Ms. Carroll published a considerable work, entitled "The Great American Battle," or Political Romanism. Therein we find, "'Oh, mother,' said America, 'are we passing through Liberty? Great God, why do I suffer, why do I tremble? I see the vehicles thronging the way-side, filling up all the roads with these Jesuit papists; are we importing these foreigners to export our honor, our fame, our virtue, our nationality?'" [3] [4]
    Anna Ella Carroll played a significant role as advisor to the Lincoln cabinet during the American Civil War. Francis Bicknell Carpenter's painting, First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln (image shown), shows an empty chair, believed by some to be an allusion to Ms. Carroll. [5]

Emerging from their corners are the fiery dames of Maryland. Their knockout punches are sure to connect with a host of subjects in the vicinity. Don't get too close! A wild punch could land on you, Governor Thomas Hicks of Maryland. Or on you, "Know Nothing" presidential candidate Millard Fillmore. Or on you, John C. Breckenridge, possible beneficiary of a "Baltimore Plot."

------- Notes -------
[1] My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington. (1863) by Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow
[2] Harper's Magazine, March 1912. "Mrs. Greenhow", by William Gilmore Beymer
[3] A Military Genius, Life Of Anna Ella Carroll, ("The great unrecognized member of Lincoln's Cabinet."), by Sarah Ellen Blackwell 1891
[4] Carroll, Anna Ella. The Great American Battle (or, The Contest Between Christianity and Political Romanism).
New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856
[5] "Anna Ella Carroll", Wikipedia, May 30, 2011