During Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North, which ended at Antietam, the war's divisions in Maryland set neighbor against neighbor. On September 13, 1862, Greensboro resident Richard Chambers appealed to President Abraham Lincoln for help, saying loyal Union people on Maryland's Eastern Shore lived in constant contact with secessionists who threatened vengeance when Stonewall Jackson came into the state. He warned that they claimed to have plenty of arms in various places in that and adjacent counties, had attempted and would train guerrilla bands and companies, and made personal threats against eminently loyal citizens. Chambers said some were arrested but, after agreeing to take the oath of allegiance, were released and returned home worse than before. He also reported that two meeting houses or churches had already been burned a few miles from where he lived and that others were threatened, and he feared that if authorities continued to trifle with the situation, summary execution of some of the offenders would result.