He had already been a State Delegate, State's Attorney, U.S. Congressman, and gubernatorial candidate.  

In local civic affairs, he was active as a leader in the Rockville Library Assn., Rockville Riflemen (local militia), Rockville Academy (local school), the Benevolent Aid Society and the Rockville Cemetary Assn.

Mr. Bowie was among arrested Unionists, captured at Christ Episcopal Church, are marched off as a prinsoner with JEB Stuart's column in 1863.

Montgomery County Historical Society
Rockville. Portrait of a City, p. 48.

Montgomery County Historical Society
Rockville. Portrait of a City, p. 48.

Mr. Higgins also was among arrested Unionists, captured at Christ Episcopal Church, are marched off as a prinsoner with JEB Stuart's column in 1863.  He is the husband of Dora Higgins, whom described events of the day in a letter that survives today.   To read Dora's letter, click here.

During the Civil War Mary Dawson was surely busy caring for seven children (ranging from 3 to 15 years old in 1861) and overseeing a farm estate with her husband Lawrence.  The disruptions of war were an extra burden.  Mary took in wounded soldiers and was called on occasionally to supply food or meals to soldiers.  Also, the family tried to preserve the resources of the farm from plundering.  While the Dawson family owned slaves that worked the farm, they remained staunch Unionists.  Mary was a daughter of the Kiger family of Winchester, Virginia, who also kept Union sentiments, notwithstanding their residency in a state of the Confederacy.  One of Mary's brothers raised and commanded Company K of the 28th Virginia U.S. Volunteers (i.e. in the Union army).  Other Kiger men also fought for the North side.  The Dawson family were unpopular in this period as Unionists in an ostensibly Secessionist favoring town.  This uncomfortable position likely was worsened with Lawrence Dawson serving as a draft commissioner.  For this he was subject to arrest by JEB Stuart's cavalry force when it visited Rockville.  He was marched away as a prisoner, but subsequently paroled in Brookeville, whence he walked home to a joyous reception.  She lived until 1877.

Dawson Family Collection,
Living Through History, p. 34.

Dawson Family Collection,
Living Through History, p. 39.

Mollie Dawson was nine in 1861 when the war started.  She remembered it clearly throughout her life and passed on many oral history episodes to generations of her family.  She lived in fear of Confederate soldiers and the possibility of them returning to take away her father again, after this first occurred in 1863.  She likely spent time helping her family preserve their farm resources from the armies and individual soldiers that passed their way.  Mollie lived at Rocky Glen farm until 1897, when she married George Comer (a widower that she met when visiting her brother in the Dakotas), an Indian agent in Nebraska, and moved there.  Mollie was a matriarch of the larger and geographically spread Dawson family.  She lived until 1933.

Teacher and surveyor before the war.  After the war he became an administrator for the nascent Montgomery County Public Schools.

Montgomery County Historical Society
Rockville. Portrait of a City, p. 49.

Peerless Rockville
Rockville. Portrait of a City, p. 60.

He was a leader of the secessionist movement in Montgomery County.  Before the war, he commanded (rank of Captain) the Rockville Rifles, a local militia unit.  This militia unit was disbanded and their weapons confiscated, by Union army officials when the Rockville Expedition arrived in town.  Mr. Bouic was arrested briefly in 1861 for attending a disloyal meeting.

Carter and Peter were Rockville Lawyers.  Dufief and Gassaway owned large farm estates in the County west of Rockville (near the Potomac River).

These were prominent area residents, known for secessionist loyalty and anonimously accused of various forms of abetting Confederate forces.  They were arrested in February 1864 and held in Capital Prison in Washington DC without warrant, charges or trial.  For more on this story, click here.

Charles Jacobs, The Maryland Line u.d., p. 2