Basil W. Spalding was a Confederate Civil War veteran and tobacco farmer who lived in Charles County, Maryland. He was born at Pleasant Hill Plantation, which had been in his family for two hundred years and died at Green Park nearby. A native of Maryland, Spalding fought from 1862-1865 in the American Civil War in the name of the Confederacy after escaping from school to join "the Great Adventure". After returning to his home state, he married and took on a simple lifestyle as a father to his children, husband to his wife, and a farmer. He married twice and had ten children. Spalding Died in 1929. He was a Catholic.
Early life
Basil Spalding was born on December 11, 1846 to John Spalding, a slave-holding tobacco plantation owner and his second wife, Mary Carroll, a great-granddaughter of Daniel Carroll, a Founding Father of the United States. Very shortly after Spalding's birth, however, Mary Carroll died. When he was two years old, his father, John Spalding, also died. An orphan, Spalding was taken into the care of his relative, William Fendley Dement, a Charles County plantation owner. Dement's wife, Mary Teresa Symphronia Green, was John Spalding's sister and therefore Spalding's aunt. At the Dement's plantation, Eutaw, Spalding was raised by Mary Teresa as a son. Later, as a young adult, Spalding left to attend a private academy in northern Maryland.
The Civil War
In early 1861, tensions between North and South were high, and war seemed imminent. Although Maryland officially remained in the Union upon the outbreak of the Civil War, support for the Union was not all that common. The prominent Dements, like many Southern Maryland families at the time whose lifestyle was dependent on slavery, had much at risk. Ardent supporters of slavery, the Charles County elite vehemently opposed Abraham Lincoln as President and when the Confederate States of America was founded, Charles County took its side. Charles County even requested the immediate secession of the state of Maryland. In June 1861, William F. Dement and one of his servants left Eutaw and crossed the Potomac into Virginia to join the Confederate Army. He founded an artillery battery, known as Dement's First Maryland Battery. In 1862, with the war raging on, Spalding, only seventeen years old, became determined to fight against what he viewed as Northern aggression and one day, he escaped from school by jumping out the window to take up arms against the Union. He joined a notorious guerrilla force known as McNeill's Rangers, a 210 man battalion-size unit that was known for its brazen attacks, unpredictable behavior and relentless raids. It operated mainly in the western counties of Virginia and West Virginia. Spalding took part in McNeill's numerous raids on Piedmont, West Virginia, and Cumberland, Maryland, which were aimed at destroying the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad service. The raids severely damaged supply routes for the Union forces and hindered their forces ability to wage war. As McNeill's Rangers used horses for swift mobility and had no known base, they caused such extensive damage that more than 25,000 troops were dispatched by Federal commanders to guard the B&O against them.
Spalding lived a simple life after the war. He lived at Pleasant Hill and raised his children there. After his second wife died in 1909, he took care of his youngest son, Francis Philip, who was only thirteen at the time. In 1911, Pleasant Hill, which had been in the Spalding Family for generations and was originally part of Green's Inheritance, was sold. Spading then lived in Green Park, where he died in 1929 after an illness of about a month.
Marriage and family
Spalding married first Elizabeth Dement, William Fendley Dement's sister, in 1871. After she died, he married again. This time being his cousin, Francis B. Green's daughter, Mary Ann Elizabeth Green. She died in 1909 and Basil never remarried. He outlived his second wife by twenty years.
Issue
All of Spalding's children were born at his plantation, Pleasant Hill, in Pomfret, Charles County, Maryland. Spalding and Elizabeth Dement had four children: John Carroll, Mary Genevieve, Anna Mary, and Louis Joseph. One month after Louis's birth, Elizabeth Dement died, leaving Basil a single parent of four children, all under the age of 10. A few years later, Spalding married Mary Ann Elizabeth Green, his cousin's daughter. By Mary Ann, Basil had six children, but only four of them lived into adulthood. They were: Bernard William Green; Mary Louise Cecelia; Marie Leola; twins Mary Elizabeth & Mary Helen; and Francis Philip.
