THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF THE SOUTH...continued
BY HON. WM. WIRT HENRY, LL.D., OF VIRGINIA
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This bold stream of emigrants struck the American continent mainly on the eastern border of Pennylvania, and was, in great measure, turned southward through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, reaching and crossing the Savannah river. It was met at various points by counter streams of the same race, which had entered the continent through the seaports of the Carolinas and Georgia. Turning westward, the combined flood overflowed the mountains and covered the rich valley of the Mississippi beyond. As the Puritans or Round-heads of the south, but freed from fanaticism, they gave tone to its people and direction to its history.
It is of these that it is my privilege to speak to-day.
Leaving Pennsylvania, southward, the first colony into which this race entered was Maryland. Their settlements were principally in the narrow slip which constitutes the western portion, but we find them in every part of the colony. It was due to them that Maryland was among the foremost of the colonies in the Indian wars and in the Revolution. Of this blood was her great Revolutionary leader, Charles Carroll, and that model soldier, John Eager Howard. He seized the critical moment with his brave Maryland line at the battle of Cowpens, and turned the fortunes of the day, and was equally deserving of success, but less fortunate, at Guilford and Eutaw. Of him General Greene wrote, introducing him to a friend: "This will be handed to you by Colonel Howard, as good an officer as the world affords. He has great ability and the best disposition to promote the service. My own obligations to him are great--the public's still more so. He deserves a statue of gold no less than the Roman and Grecian heroes."
It was to this population, and to the Puritans driven from Virginia to Maryland, that Protestantism is indebted for the rescue of the colony from the Romish faith; and in all that has made the state so conspicuous on the page of American history, we find traces of the Scotch-Irish.