BALTIMORE
AND
THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL, 1861

A Study of the War

By GEORGE WILLIAM BROWN
Chief Judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore, and Mayor of the City in 1861

BALTIMORE
N. Murray, Publication Agent, Johns Hopkins University
1887

Copyright, 1887, by N. Murray.

ISAAC FRIEDENWALD, PRINTER,
BALTIMORE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

• Page.

• 1. Introduction, [9]
• 2. The First Blood Shed in the War, [10]
• 3. The Supposed Plot to Assassinate the Incoming President, [11]
• 4. The Midnight Ride to Washington, [17]

CHAPTER II.

• 1. The Compromises of the Constitution in Regard to Slavery, [20]
• 2. A Divided House, [23]
• 3. The Broken Compact, [25]
• 4. The Right of Revolution, [27]

CHAPTER III.

• 1. Maryland's Desire for Peace, [30]
• 2. Events which Followed the Election of President Lincoln, [31]
• 3. His Proclamation Calling for Troops, [32]
• 4. The City Authorities and Police of Baltimore, [34]
• 5. Increasing Excitement in Baltimore, [39]

CHAPTER IV.

• 1. The Sixth Massachusetts Regiment in Baltimore, [42]
• 2. The Fight, [47]
• 3. The Departure for Washington, [52]
• 4. Correspondence in Regard to the Killed and Wounded, [54]
• 5. Public Meeting, [56]
• 6. Telegram to the President, [57]
• 7. No Reply, [58]
• 8. Burning of Bridges, [59]

CHAPTER V.

• 1. April 20th—Increasing Excitement, [60]
• 2. Appropriation of $500,000 for Defense of the City, [60]
• 3. Correspondence with President and Governor, [61]
• 4. Men Enrolled, [63]
• 5. Apprehended Attack on Fort McHenry, [66]
• 6. Marshal Kane, [69]
• 7. Interview with President, Cabinet, and General Scott, [71]
• 8. General Butler, with the Eighth Massachusetts, Proceeds to Annapolis and Washington, [76]
• 9. Baltimore in a State of Armed Neutrality, [77]

CHAPTER VI.

• 1. Session of the General Assembly, [79]
• 2. Report of the Board of Police, [80]
• 3. Suppression of the Flags, [82]
• 4. On the 5th of May General Butler Takes Position Six Miles from Baltimore, [83]
• 5. On the 13th of May He Enters Baltimore and Fortifies Federal Hill, [84]
• 6. The General Assembly will Take no Steps toward Secession, [85]
• 7. Many Young Men Join the Army of the Confederacy, [85]

CHAPTER VII.

• 1. Chief Justice Taney and the Writ of Habeas Corpus, [87]
• 2. A Union Convention, [92]
• 3. Consequence of the Suspension of the Writ, [93]
• 4. Incidents of the War, [95]
• 5. The Women in the War, [95]

CHAPTER VIII.

• 1. General Banks in Command, [97]
• 2. Marshal Kane Arrested, [97]
• 3. Police Commissioners Superseded, [97]
• 4. Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly, [98]
• 5. Police Commissioners Arrested, [98]
• 6. Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly, [100]
• 7. General Dix in Command, [100]
• 8. Arrest of the Members of the General Assembly, the Mayor, and Others, [102]
• 9. Release of Prisoners, [108]
• 10. Colonel Dimick, [111]

CHAPTER IX.—A Personal Chapter. [113]

APPENDIX I.

Account of the Alleged Conspiracy To Assassinate Abraham Lincoln on His Journey to Baltimore, from the "Life of Abraham Lincoln," by Ward H. Lamon, pp. 511-526, [120]

APPENDIX II.

Extract from the Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, Delivered by Chief Justice Taney, in the Case of Dred Scott vs. Sanford (19 How. 407), [138]

APPENDIX III.

The Habeas Corpus Case.—Opinion of the Chief Justice of the United States (Ex Parte John Merryman), [139]

APPENDIX IV.

Message of the 12th of July, 1861, to the First and Second Branches of the City Council, Referring to the Events of the 19th of April and those which Followed.—The First Paragraph and the Concluding Paragraphs of this Document, [157]

APPENDIX V.

As a Part of the History of the Times, Reproduction from the Baltimore "American" of December 5, 1860, of the Reception of the Putnam Phalanx, of Hartford, Connecticut, in the City of Baltimore, [160]

APPENDIX VI.

Visit of a Portion of the Members of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment to Baltimore on the 19th of April, 1880, and an Account of its Reception, from the Baltimore "Sun" and the Baltimore "American," [167]

INDEX, [171]

BALTIMORE AND THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL, 1861.
A STUDY OF THE WAR.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION. — THE FIRST BLOOD SHED IN THE WAR. — THE SUPPOSED PLOT TO ASSASSINATE THE INCOMING PRESIDENT. — THE MIDNIGHT RIDE TO WASHINGTON.

I have often been solicited by persons of widely opposite political opinions to write an account of the events which occurred in Baltimore on the 19th of April, 1861, about which much that is exaggerated and sensational has been circulated; but, for different reasons, I have delayed complying with the request until this time.

These events were not isolated facts, but were the natural result of causes which had roots deep in the past, and they were followed by serious and important consequences. The narrative, to be complete, must give some account of both cause and consequence, and to do this briefly and with a proper regard to historical proportion is no easy task.

Moreover, it is not pleasant to disturb the ashes of a great conflagration, which, although they have grown cold on the surface, cover embers still capable of emitting both smoke and heat; and especially is it not pleasant when the disturber of the ashes was himself an actor in the scenes which he is asked to describe.

But more than twenty-five years have passed, and with them have passed away most of the generation then living; and, as one of the rapidly diminishing survivors, I am admonished by the lengthening shadows that anything I may have to say should be said speedily. The nation has learned many lessons of wisdom from its civil war, and not the least among them is that every truthful contribution to its annals or to its teachings is not without some value.

I have accordingly undertaken the task, but not without reluctance, because it necessarily revives recollections of the most trying and painful experiences of my life—experiences which for a long time I have not unwillingly permitted to fade in the dim distance.

There was another 19th of April—that of Lexington in 1775—which has become memorable in history for a battle between the Minute Men of Massachusetts and a column of British troops, in which the first blood was shed in the war of the Revolution. It was the heroic beginning of that contest.

The fight which occurred in the streets of Baltimore on the 19th of April, 1861, between the 6th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers and a mob of citizens, was also memorable, because then was shed the first blood in a conflict between the North and the South; then a step was taken which made compromise or retreat almost impossible; then passions on both sides were aroused which could not be controlled.[1] In each case the outbreak was an explosion of conflicting forces long suppressed, but certain, sooner or later, to occur. Here the coincidence ends. The Minute Men of Massachusetts were so called because they were prepared to rise on a minute's notice. They had anticipated and had prepared for the strife. The attack by the mob in Baltimore was a sudden uprising of popular fury. The events themselves were magnified as the tidings flashed over the whole country, and the consequences were immediate. The North became wild with astonishment and rage, and the South rose to fever-heat from the conviction that Maryland was about to fall into line as the advance guard of the Southern Confederacy.

In February, 1861, when Mr. Lincoln was on his way to Washington to prepare for his inauguration as President of the United States, an unfortunate incident occurred which had a sinister influence on the State of Maryland, and especially on the city of Baltimore. Some superserviceable persons, carried away, honestly no doubt, by their own frightened imaginations, and perhaps in part stimulated by the temptation of getting up a sensation of the first class, succeeded in persuading Mr. Lincoln that a formidable conspiracy existed to assassinate him on his way through Maryland.

It was announced publicly that he was to come from Philadelphia, not by the usual route through Wilmington, but by a circuitous journey through Harrisburg, and thence by the Northern Central Railroad to Baltimore. Misled by this statement, I, as Mayor of the city, accompanied by the Police Commissioners and supported by a strong force of police, was at the Calvert-street station on Saturday morning, February 23d, at half-past eleven o'clock, the appointed time of arrival, ready to receive with due respect the incoming President. An open carriage was in waiting, in which I was to have the honor of escorting Mr. Lincoln through the city to the Washington station, and of sharing in any danger which he might encounter. It is hardly necessary to say that I apprehended none. When the train came it appeared, to my great astonishment, that Mrs. Lincoln and her three sons had arrived safely and without hindrance or molestation of any kind, but that Mr. Lincoln could not be found. It was then announced that he had passed through the city incognito in the night train by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and had reached Washington in safety at the usual hour in the morning. For this signal deliverance from an imaginary peril, those who devised the ingenious plan of escape were of course devoutly thankful, and they accordingly took to themselves no little amount of credit for its success.

If Mr. Lincoln had arrived in Baltimore at the time expected, and had spoken a few words to the people who had gathered to hear him, expressing the kind feelings which were in his heart with the simple eloquence of which he was so great a master, he could not have failed to make a very different impression from that which was produced not only by the want of confidence and respect manifested towards the city of Baltimore by the plan pursued, but still more by the manner in which it was carried out. On such an occasion as this even trifles are of importance, and this incident was not a trifle. The emotional part of human nature is its strongest side and soonest leads to action. It was so with the people of Baltimore. Fearful accounts of the conspiracy flew all over the country, creating a hostile feeling against the city, from which it soon afterwards suffered. A single specimen of the news thus spread will suffice. A dispatch from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to the New York Times, dated February 23d, 8 A. M., says: "Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect of the United States, is safe in the capital of the nation." Then, after describing the dreadful nature of the conspiracy, it adds: "The list of the names of the conspirators presented a most astonishing array of persons high in Southern confidence, and some whose fame is not confined to this country alone."

Of course, the list of names was never furnished, and all the men in buckram vanished in air. This is all the notice which this matter would require except for the extraordinary narrative contributed by Mr. Samuel M. Felton, at that time President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company, to the volume entitled "A History of Massachusetts in the Civil War," published in 1868.

Early in 1861, Mr. Felton had made, as he supposed, a remarkable discovery of "a deep-laid conspiracy to capture Washington and break up the Government."

Soon afterwards Miss Dix, the philanthropist, opportunely came to his office on a Saturday afternoon, stating that she had an important communication to make to him personally, and then, with closed doors and for more than an hour, she poured into his ears a thrilling tale, to which he attentively listened. "The sum of all was (I quote the language of Mr. Felton) that there was then an extensive and organized conspiracy throughout the South to seize upon Washington, with its archives and records, and then declare the Southern conspirators de facto the Government of the United States. The whole was to be a coup d'état. At the same time they were to cut off all modes of communication between Washington and the North, East or West, and thus prevent the transportation of troops to wrest the capital from the hands of the insurgents. Mr. Lincoln's inauguration was thus to be prevented, or his life was to fall a sacrifice to the attempt at inauguration. In fact, troops were then drilling on the line of our own road, and the Washington and Annapolis line and other lines."

It was clear that the knowledge of a treasonable conspiracy of such vast proportions, which had already begun its operations, ought not to be confined solely to the keeping of Mr. Felton and Miss Dix. Mr. N. P. Trist, an officer of the road, was accordingly admitted into the secret, and was dispatched in haste to Washington, to lay all the facts before General Scott, the Commander-in-Chief. The General, however, would give no assurances except that he would do all he could to bring sufficient troops to Washington to make it secure. Matters stood in this unsatisfactory condition for some time, until a new rumor reached the ears of Mr. Felton.

A gentleman from Baltimore, he says, came out to Back River Bridge, about five miles east of the city, and told the bridgekeeper that he had information which had come to his knowledge, of vital importance to the road, which he wished communicated to Mr. Felton. The nature of this communication was that a party was then organized in Baltimore to burn the bridges in case Mr. Lincoln came over the road, or in case an attempt was made to carry troops for the defense of Washington. The party at that time had combustible materials prepared to pour over the bridges, and were to disguise themselves as negroes and be at the bridge just before the train in which Mr. Lincoln travelled had arrived. The bridge was then to be burned, the train attacked, and Mr. Lincoln to be put out of the way. The man appeared several times, always, it seems, to the bridgekeeper, and he always communicated new information about the conspirators, but he would never give his name nor place of abode, and both still remain a mystery. Mr. Felton himself then went to Washington, where he succeeded in obtaining from a prominent gentleman from Baltimore whom he there saw, the judicious advice to apply to Marshal Kane, the Chief of Police in Baltimore, with the assurance that he was a perfectly reliable person. Marshal Kane was accordingly seen, but he scouted the idea that there was any such thing on foot as a conspiracy to burn the bridges and cut off Washington, and said he had thoroughly investigated the whole matter, and there was not the slightest foundation for such rumors. Mr. Felton was not satisfied, but he would have nothing more to do with Marshal Kane. He next sent for a celebrated detective in the West, whose name is not given, and through this chief and his subordinates every nook and corner of the road and its vicinity was explored. They reported that they had joined the societies of the conspirators in Baltimore and got into their secrets, and that the secret working of secession and treason was laid bare, with all its midnight plottings and daily consultations. The conspiracy being thus proved to Mr. Felton's satisfaction, he at once organized and armed a force of two hundred men and scattered them along the line of the railroad between the Susquehanna and Baltimore, principally at the bridges. But, strange to say, all that was accomplished by this formidable body was an enormous job of whitewashing.

The narrative proceeds: "These men were drilled secretly and regularly by drill-masters, and were apparently employed in whitewashing the bridges, patting on some six or seven coats of whitewash saturated with salt and alum, to make the outside of the bridges as nearly fireproof as possible. This whitewashing, so extensive in its application, became (continues Mr. Felton) the nine days' wonder of the neighborhood." And well it might. After the lapse of twenty-five years the wonder over this feat of strategy can hardly yet have ceased in that rural and peaceful neighborhood. But, unfortunately for Mr. Felton's peace of mind, the programme of Mr. Lincoln's journey was suddenly changed. He had selected a different route. He had decided to go to Harrisburg from Philadelphia, and thence by day to Baltimore, over another and a rival road, known as the Northern Central. Then the chief detective discovered that the attention of the conspirators was suddenly turned to the Northern Central road. The mysterious unknown gentleman from Baltimore appeared again on the scene and confirmed this statement. He gave warning that Mr. Lincoln was to be waylaid and his life sacrificed on that road, on which no whitewash had been used, and where there were no armed men to protect him.

Mr. Felton hurried to Philadelphia, and there, in a hotel, joined his chief detective, who was registered under a feigned name. Mr. Lincoln, cheered by a dense crowd, was, at that moment, passing through the streets of Philadelphia. A sub-detective was sent to bring Mr. Judd, Mr. Lincoln's intimate friend, to the hotel to hold a consultation. Mr. Judd was in the procession with Mr. Lincoln, but the emergency admitted no delay. The eagerness of the sub-detective was so great that he was three times arrested and carried out of the crowd by the police before he could reach Mr. Judd. The fourth attempt succeeded, and Mr. Judd was at last brought to the hotel, where he met both Mr. Felton and the chief detective. The narrative then proceeds in the words of Mr. Felton: "We lost no time in making known to him (Mr. Judd) all the facts which had come to our knowledge in reference to the conspiracy, and I most earnestly advised sleeping-car. Mr. Judd fully entered into the plan, and said he would urge Mr. Lincoln to adopt it. On his communicating with Mr. Lincoln, after the services of the evening were over, he answered that he had engaged to go to Harrisburg and speak the next day, and that he would not break his engagement, even in the face of such peril, but that after he had fulfilled his engagement he would follow such advice as we might give him in reference to his journey to Washington." Mr. Lincoln accordingly went to Harrisburg the next day and made an address. After that the arrangements for the journey were shrouded in the profoundest mystery. It was given out that he was to go to Governor Curtin's house for the night, but he was, instead, conducted to a point about two miles out of Harrisburg, where an extra car and engine waited to take him to Philadelphia. The telegraph lines east, west, north and south from Harrisburg were cut, so that no message as to his movements could be sent off in any direction. But all this caused a detention, and the night train from Philadelphia to Baltimore had to be held back until the arrival of Mr. Lincoln at the former place. If, however, the delay proved to be considerable, when Mr. Lincoln reached Baltimore the connecting train to Washington might leave without him. But Mr. Felton was equal to the occasion. He devised a plan which was communicated to only three or four on the road. A messenger was sent to Baltimore by an earlier train to say to the officials of the Washington road that a very important package must be delivered in Washington early in the morning, and to request them to wait for the night train from Philadelphia. To give color to this statement, a package of old railroad reports, done up with great care, and with a large seal attached, marked by Mr. Felton's own hand, "Very Important," was sent in the train which carried Mr. Lincoln on his famous night ride from Philadelphia through Maryland and Baltimore to the city of Washington. The only remarkable incident of the journey was the mysterious behavior of the few officials who were entrusted with the portentous secret.

I do not know how others may be affected by this narrative, but I confess even now to a feeling of indignation that Mr. Lincoln, who was no coward, but proved himself on many an occasion to be a brave man, was thus prevented from carrying out his original intention of journeying to Baltimore in the light of day, in company with his wife and children, relying as he always did on the honor and manhood of the American people. It is true we have, to our sorrow, learned by the manner of his death, as well as by the fate of still another President, that no one occupying so high a place can be absolutely safe, even in this country, from the danger of assassination, but it is still true that as a rule the best way to meet such danger is boldly to defy it.

Mr. C. C. Felton, son of Mr. Samuel M. Felton, in an article entitled "The Baltimore Plot," published in December, 1885, in the Harvard Monthly, has attempted to revive this absurd story. He repeats the account of whitewashing the bridges, and of the astonishment created among the good people of the neighborhood. He has faith in "the unknown Baltimorean" who visited the bridgekeeper, but would never give his name, and in the spies employed, who, he tells us, were "the well-known detective Pinkerton and eight assistants," and he leaves his readers to infer that Mr. Lincoln's life was saved by the extraordinary vigilance which had been exercised and the ingenious plan which had been devised by his worthy father, but alas!—

"The earth hath bubbles as the water has,"

and this was of them.

Colonel Lamon, a close friend of President Lincoln, and the only person who accompanied him on his night ride to Washington, has written his biography, a very careful and conscientious work, which unfortunately was left unfinished, and he of course had the strongest reasons for carefully examining the subject. After a full examination of all the documents, Colonel Lamon pronounces the conspiracy to be a mere fiction, and adds in confirmation the mature opinion of Mr. Lincoln himself.

Colonel Lamon says:[2] "Mr. Lincoln soon learned to regret the midnight ride. His friends reproached him, his enemies taunted him. He was convinced that he had committed a grave mistake in yielding to the solicitations of a professional spy and of friends too easily alarmed. He saw that he had fled from a danger purely imaginary, and felt the shame and mortification natural to a brave man under such circumstances. But he was not disposed to take all the responsibility to himself, and frequently upbraided the writer for having aided and assisted him to demean himself at the very moment in all his life when his behavior should have exhibited the utmost dignity and composure."

As Colonel Lamon's biography, a work of absorbing interest, is now out of print, and as his account of the ride and of the results of the investigation of the conspiracy is too long to be inserted here, it is added in an Appendix.

The account above given has its appropriateness here, for the midnight ride through Baltimore, and the charge that its citizens were plotting the President's assassination, helped to feed the flame of excitement which, in the stirring events of that time, was already burning too high all over the land, and especially in a border city with divided sympathies.

CHAPTER II.

THE COMPROMISES OF THE CONSTITUTION IN REGARD TO SLAVERY. — A DIVIDED HOUSE. — THE BROKEN COMPACT. — THE RIGHT OF REVOLUTION.

For a period the broad provisions of the Constitution of the United States, as expounded by the wise and broad decisions of the Supreme Court, had proved to be equal to every emergency. The thirteen feeble colonies had grown to be a great Republic, and no external obstacle threatened its majestic progress; foreign wars had been waged and vast territories had been annexed, but every strain on the Constitution only served to make it stronger. Yet there was a canker in a vital part which nothing could heal, which from day to day became more malignant, and which those who looked beneath the surface could perceive was surely leading, and at no distant day, to dissolution or war, or perhaps to both. The canker was the existence of negro slavery.

In colonial days, kings, lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, all united in favoring the slave trade. In Massachusetts the Puritan minister might be seen on the Sabbath going to meeting in family procession, with his negro slave bringing up the rear. Boston was largely engaged in building ships and manufacturing rum, and a portion of the ships and much of the rum were sent to Africa, the rum to buy slaves, and the ships to bring them to a market in America. Newport was more largely, and until a more recent time, engaged in the same traffic.

In Maryland, even the Friends were sometimes owners of slaves; and it is charged, and apparently with reason, that Wenlock Christison, the Quaker preacher, after being driven from Massachusetts by persecution and coming to Maryland by way of Barbadoes, sent or brought in with him a number of slaves, who cultivated his plantation until his death. In Georgia, the Calvinist Whitefield blessed God for his negro plantation, which was generously given to him to establish his "Bethesda" as a refuge for orphan children.

In the Dred Scott case, Chief Justice Taney truly described the opinion, which he deplored, prevailing at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, as being that the colored man had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.[3]

The Constitution had endeavored to settle the question of slavery by a compromise. As the difficulty in regard to it arose far more from political than moral grounds, so in the settlement the former were almost exclusively considered. It was, however, the best that could be made at that time. It is certain that without such a compromise the Constitution would not have been adopted. The existence of slavery in a State was left in the discretion of the State itself. If a slave escaped to another State, he was to be returned to his master. Laws were passed by Congress to carry out this provision, and the Supreme Court decided that they were constitutional.

For a long time the best people at the North stood firmly by the compromise. It was a national compact, and must be respected. But ideas, and especially moral ideas, cannot be forever fettered by a compact, no matter how solemn may be its sanctions. The change of opinion at the North was first slow, then rapid, and then so powerful as to overwhelm all opposition. John Brown, who was executed for raising a negro insurrection in Virginia, in which men were wounded and killed, was reverenced by many at the North as a hero, a martyr and a saint. It had long been a fixed fact that no fugitive slave could by process of law be returned from the North into slavery. With the advent to power of the Republican party—a party based on opposition to slavery—another breach in the outworks of the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, had been made. Sooner or later the same hands would capture the citadel. Sooner or later it was plain that slavery was doomed.

In the memorable Senatorial campaign in Illinois between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, the latter, in his speech before the Republican State Convention at Springfield, June 17, 1858, struck the keynote of his party by the bold declaration on the subject of slavery which he then made and never recalled.

This utterance was the more remarkable because on the previous day the convention had passed unanimously a resolution declaring that Mr. Lincoln was their first and only choice for United States Senator, to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of office, but the convention had done nothing which called for the advanced ground on which Mr. Lincoln planted himself in that speech. It was carefully prepared.

The narrative of Colonel Lamon in his biography of Lincoln is intensely interesting and dramatic.[4]

About a dozen gentlemen, he says, were called to meet in the library of the State House. After seating them at the round table, Mr. Lincoln read his entire speech, dwelling slowly on that part which speaks of a divided house, so that every man fully understood it. After he had finished, he asked for the opinion of his friends. All but William H. Herndon, the law partner of Mr. Lincoln, declared that the whole speech was too far in advance of the times, and they especially condemned that part which referred to a divided house. Mr. Herndon sat still while they were giving their respective opinions; then he sprang to his feet and said: "Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads. If it is in advance of the times, let us—you and I, if no one else—lift the people to the level of this speech now, higher hereafter. The speech is true, wise and politic, and will succeed now, or in the future. Nay, it will aid you, if it will not make you President of the United States."...

"Mr. Lincoln sat still a short moment, rose from his chair, walked backward and forward in the hall, stopped and said: 'Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered; and if it must be that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth—die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice. A house divided against itself cannot stand, I say again and again.'"

The opening paragraph of the speech is as follows: "If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but is constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

The blast of the trumpet gave no uncertain sound. The far-seeing suggestion of Mr. Herndon came true to the letter. I believe this speech made Abraham Lincoln President of the United States.

But the founders of the Constitution of the United States had built a house which was divided against itself from the beginning. They had framed a union of States which was part free and part slave, and that union was intended to last forever. Here was an irreconcilable conflict between the Constitution and the future President of the United States.

When the Republican Convention assembled at Chicago in May, 1860, in the heat of the contest, which soon became narrowed down to a choice between Mr. Seward and Mr. Lincoln, the latter dispatched a friend to Chicago with a message in writing, which was handed either to Judge Davis or Judge Logan, both members of the convention, which runs as follows: "Lincoln agrees with Seward in his irrepressible-conflict idea, and in negro equality; but he is opposed to Seward's higher law." But there was no substantial difference between the position of the two: Lincoln's "divided house" and Seward's "higher law" placed them really in the same attitude.

The seventh resolution in the Chicago platform condemned what it described as the "new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States." This resolution was a direct repudiation by a National Convention of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case.

On the 6th of November, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Of the actual votes cast there was a majority against him of 930,170. Next came Mr. Douglas, who lost the support of the Southern Democrats by his advocacy of the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty," as it was called, which was in effect, although not in form, as hostile to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case as the seventh resolution of the Chicago Convention itself. Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, the candidate of the Southern Democracy, fell very far, and Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, the candidate of the Union party, as it was called, a short-lived successor of the old Whig party, fell still farther in the rear of the two Northern candidates.

The great crisis had come at last. The Abolition party had become a portion of the victorious Republican party. The South, politically, was overwhelmed. Separated now from its only ally, the Northern Democracy, it stood at last alone.

It matters not that Mr. Lincoln, after his election, in sincerity of heart held out the olive branch to the nation, and that during his term of office the South, so far as his influence could avail, would have been comparatively safe from direct aggressions. Mr. Lincoln was not known then as he is known now, and, moreover, his term of office would be but four years.

What course, then, was left to the South if it was determined to maintain its rights under the Constitution? What but the right of self-defense?

The house of every man is his castle, and he may defend it to the death against all aggressors. When a hostile hand is raised to strike a blow, he who is assaulted need not wait until the blow falls, but on the instant may protect himself as best he can. These are the rights of self-defense known, approved and acted on by all freemen. And where constitutional rights of a people are in jeopardy, a kindred right of self-defense belongs to them. Although revolutionary in its character, it is not the less a right.

Wendell Phillips, abolitionist as he was, in a speech made at New Bedford on the 9th of April, 1861, three days before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, fully recognized this right. He said: "Here are a series of States girding the Gulf, who think that their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government. They have a right to decide that question without appealing to you or me. A large body of the people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to the conclusion that they will have a government of a certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right? What is a matter of a few millions of dollars or a few forts? It is a mere drop in the bucket of the great national question. It is theirs just as much as ours. I maintain, on the principles of '76, that Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter."

And such was the honest belief of the people who united in establishing the Southern Confederacy.

Wendell Phillips was not wrong in declaring the principles of '76 to be kindred to those of '61. The men of '76 did not fight to get rid of the petty tax of three pence a pound on tea, which was the only tax left to quarrel about. They were determined to pay no taxes, large or small, then or thereafter. Whether the tax was lawful or not was a doubtful question, about which there was a wide difference of opinion, but they did not care for that. Nothing would satisfy them but the relinquishment of any claim of right to tax the colonies, and this they could not obtain. They maintained that their rights were violated. They were, moreover, embittered by a long series of disputes with the mother country, and they wanted to be independent and to have a country of their own. They thought they were strong enough to maintain that position.

Neither were the Southern men of '61 fighting for money. And they too were deeply embittered, not against a mother country, but against a brother country. The Northern people had published invectives of the most exasperating character broadcast against the South in their speeches, sermons, newspapers and books. The abolitionists had proceeded from words to deeds and were unwearied in tampering with the slaves and carrying them off. The Southern people, on their part, were not less violent in denunciation of the North. The slavery question had divided the political parties throughout the nation, and on this question the South was practically a unit. They could get no security that the provisions of the Constitution would be kept either in letter or in spirit, and this they demanded as their right.

The Southern men thought that they also were strong enough to wage successfully a defensive war. Like the men of '76, they in great part were of British stock; they lived in a thinly settled country, led simple lives, were accustomed to the use of arms, and knew how to protect themselves. Such men make good soldiers, and when their armies were enrolled the ranks were filled with men of all classes, the rich as well as the poor, the educated as well as the ignorant.

It is a mistake to suppose that they were inveigled into secession by ambitious leaders. On the contrary, it is probable that they were not as much under the influence of leaders as the men of '76, and that there were fewer disaffected among them. At times the scales trembled in the balance. There are always mistakes in war. It is an easy and ungrateful task to point them out afterward. We can now see that grave errors, both financial and military, were made, and that opportunities were thrown away. How far these went to settle the contest, we can never certainly know, but it does not need great boldness to assert that the belief which the Southern people entertained that they were strong enough to defend themselves, was not unreasonable.

The determination of the South to maintain slavery was undoubtedly the main cause of secession, but another deep and underlying cause was the firm belief of the Southern people in the doctrine of States' rights, and their jealousy of any attack upon those rights. Devotion to their State first of all, a conviction that paramount obligation—in case of any conflict of allegiance—was due not to the Union but to the State, had been part of the political creed of very many in the South ever since the adoption of the Constitution. An ignoble love of slavery was not the general and impelling motive. The slaveholders, who were largely in the minority, acted as a privileged class always does act. They were determined to maintain their privileges at all hazards. But they, as well as the great mass of the people who had no personal interest in slavery, fought the battles of the war with the passionate earnestness of men who believed with an undoubting conviction that they were the defenders not only of home rule and of their firesides, but also of their constitutional rights.

And behind the money question, the constitutional question and the moral question, there was still another of the gravest import. Was it possible for two races nearly equal in number, but widely different in character and civilization, to live together in a republic in peace and equality of rights without mingling in blood? The answer of the Southern man was, "It is not possible."

CHAPTER III.

MARYLAND'S DESIRE FOR PEACE. — EVENTS WHICH FOLLOWED THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. — HIS PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR TROOPS. — THE CITY AUTHORITIES AND POLICE OF BALTIMORE. — INCREASING EXCITEMENT IN BALTIMORE.

I now come to consider the condition of affairs in Maryland. As yet the Republican party had obtained a very slight foothold. Only 2,294 votes had in the whole State been cast for Mr. Lincoln. Her sympathies were divided between the North and the South, with a decided preponderance on the Southern side. For many years her conscience had been neither dead nor asleep on the subject of slavery. Families had impoverished themselves to free their slaves. In 1860 there were 83,942 free colored people in Maryland and 87,189 slaves, the white population being 515,918. Thus there were nearly as many free as slaves of the colored race. Emancipation, in spite of harsh laws passed to discountenance it, had rapidly gone on. In the northern part of the State and in the city of Baltimore there were but few slaveholders, and the slavery was hardly more than nominal. The patriarchal institution, as it has been derisively called, had a real existence in many a household. Not a few excellent people have I known and respected who were born and bred in slavery and had been freed by their masters. In 1831 the State incorporated the Maryland Colonization Society, which founded on the west coast of Africa a successful republican colony of colored people, now known as the State of Maryland in Liberia, and for twenty-six years, and until the war broke out, the State contributed $10,000 a year to its support. This amount was increased by the contributions of individuals. The board, of which Mr. John H. B. Latrobe was for many years president, was composed of our best citizens. A code of laws for the government of the colony was prepared by the excellent and learned lawyer, Hugh Davey Evans.

While there was on the part of a large portion of the people a deep-rooted and growing dislike to slavery, agitation on the subject had not commenced. It was in fact suppressed by reason of the violence of Northern abolitionists with whom the friends of emancipation were not able to unite.

It is not surprising that Maryland was in no mood for war, but that her voice was for compromise and peace—compromise and peace at any price consistent with honor.

The period immediately following the election of Mr. Lincoln in November, 1860, was throughout the country one of intense agitation and of important events. A large party at the North preferred compromise to war, even at the cost of dissolution of the Union. If dissolution began, no one could tell where it would stop. South Carolina seceded on the 17th of December, 1860. Georgia and the five Gulf States soon followed. On the 6th of January, 1861, Fernando Wood, mayor of the city of New York, sent a message to the common council advising that New York should secede and become a free city.[5]

On February the 9th, Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Southern Confederacy, a Confederacy to which other States would perhaps soon be added. But the Border States were as yet debatable ground; they might be retained by conciliation and compromise or alienated by hostile measures, whether directed against them or against the seceded States. In Virginia a convention had been called to consider the momentous question of union or secession, and an overwhelming majority of the delegates chosen were in favor of remaining in the Union. Other States were watching Virginia's course, in order to decide whether to stay in the Union or go out of it with her.

On the 12th and 13th of April occurred the memorable bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter. On the 15th of April, President Lincoln issued his celebrated proclamation calling out seventy-five thousand militia, and appealing "to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity and existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured." What these wrongs were is not stated. "The first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth," said the proclamation, "will probably be to re-possess the forts, places and property which have been seized from the Union." On the same day there was issued from the War Department a request addressed to the Governors of the different States, announcing what the quota of each State would be, and that the troops were to serve for three months unless sooner discharged. Maryland's quota was four regiments.

The proclamation was received with exultation at the North—many dissentient voices being silenced in the general acclaim—with defiance at the South, and in Maryland with mingled feelings in which astonishment, dismay and disapprobation were predominant. On all sides it was agreed that the result must be war, or a dissolution of the Union, and I may safely say that a large majority of our people then preferred the latter.

An immediate effect of the proclamation was to intensify the feeling of hostility in the wavering States, and to drive four of them into secession. Virginia acted promptly. On April 17th her convention passed an ordinance of secession—subject to ratification by a vote of the people—and Virginia became the head and front of the Confederacy. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas soon followed her lead. Meanwhile, and before the formal acts of secession, the Governors of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee sent prompt and defiant answers to the requisition, emphatically refusing to furnish troops, as did also the Governors of Kentucky and Missouri.

The position of Maryland was most critical. This State was especially important, because the capital of the nation lay within her borders, and all the roads from the North leading to it passed through her territory. After the President's proclamation was issued, no doubt a large majority of her people sympathized with the South; but even had that sentiment been far more preponderating, there was an underlying feeling that by a sort of geographical necessity her lot was cast with the North, that the larger and stronger half of the nation would not allow its capital to be quietly disintegrated away by her secession. Delaware and Maryland were the only Border States which did not attempt to secede. Kentucky at first took the impossible stand of an armed neutrality. When this failed, a portion of her people passed an ordinance of secession, and a portion of the people of Missouri passed a similar ordinance.

It is now proper to give some explanation of the condition of affairs in Baltimore, at that time a city of 215,000 inhabitants.

Thomas Holliday Hicks, who had been elected by the American, or Know-Nothing party, three years before, was the Governor of the State. The city authorities, consisting of the mayor and city council, had been elected in October, 1860, a few weeks before the Presidential election, not as representatives of any of the national parties, but as the candidates of an independent reform party, and in opposition to the Know-Nothing party. This party, which then received its quietus, had been in power for some years, and had maintained itself by methods which made its rule little better than a reign of terror.[6] No one acquainted with the history of that period can doubt that the reform was greatly needed. A large number of the best men of the American party united in the movement, and with their aid it became triumphantly successful, carrying every ward in the city. The city council was composed of men of unusually high character. "Taken as a whole" (Scharf's "History of Maryland," Vol. III., p. 284), "a better ticket has seldom, if ever, been brought out. In the selection of candidates all party tests were discarded, and all thought of rewarding partisan services repudiated." Four police commissioners, appointed by the Legislature—Charles Howard, William H. Gatchell, Charles D. Hinks and John W. Davis—men of marked ability and worth, had, with the mayor, who was ex officio a member of the board, the appointment and control of the police force. Mr. S. Teackle Wallis was the legal adviser of the board. The entire police force consisted of 398 men, and had been raised to a high degree of discipline and efficiency under the command of Marshal Kane. They were armed with revolvers.

Immediately after the call of the President for troops, including four regiments from Maryland, a marked division among the people manifested itself. Two large and excited crowds, eager for news, and nearly touching each other, stood from morning until late at night before two newspaper offices on Baltimore street which advocated contrary views and opinions. Strife was in the air. It was difficult for the police to keep the peace. Business was almost suspended. Was there indeed to be war between the sections, or could it yet, by some unlooked-for interposition, be averted? Would the Border States interfere and demand peace? There was a deep and pervading impression of impending evil. And now an immediate fear was as to the effect on the citizens of the passage of Northern troops through the city. Should they be permitted to cross the soil of Maryland, to make war on sister States of the South, allied to her by so many ties of affection, as well as of kindred institutions? On the other hand, when the capital of the nation was in danger, should not the kindest greeting and welcome be extended to those who were first to come to the rescue? Widely different were the answers given to these questions. The Palmetto flag had several times been raised by some audacious hands in street and harbor, but it was soon torn down. The National flag and the flag of the State, with its black and orange, the colors of Lord Baltimore, waved unmolested, but not side by side, for they had become symbols of different ideas, although the difference was, as yet, not clearly defined.

On the 17th of April, the state of affairs became so serious that I, as mayor, issued a proclamation earnestly invoking all good citizens to refrain from every act which could lead to outbreak or violence of any kind; to refrain from harshness of speech, and to render in all cases prompt and efficient aid, as by law they were required to do, to the public authorities, whose constant efforts would be exerted to maintain unbroken the peace and order of the city, and to administer the laws with fidelity and impartiality. I cannot flatter myself that this appeal produced much effect. The excitement was too great for any words to allay it.

On the 18th of April, notice was received from Harrisburg that two companies of United States artillery, commanded by Major Pemberton, and also four companies of militia, would arrive by the Northern Central Railroad at Bolton Station, in the northern part of the city, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The militia had neither arms nor uniforms.

Before the troops arrived at the station, where I was waiting to receive them, I was suddenly called away by a message from Governor Hicks stating that he desired to see me on business of urgent importance, and this prevented my having personal knowledge of what immediately afterward occurred. The facts, however, are that a large crowd assembled at the station and followed the soldiers in their march to the Washington station with abuse and threats. The regulars were not molested, but the wrath of the mob was directed against the militia, and an attack would certainly have been made but for the vigilance and determination of the police, under the command of Marshal Kane.

"These proceedings," says Mr. Scharf, in the third volume of his "History of Maryland," page 401, "were an earnest of what might be expected on the arrival of other troops, the excitement growing in intensity with every hour. Numerous outbreaks occurred in the neighborhood of the newspaper offices during the day, and in the evening a meeting of the States Rights Convention was held in Taylor's building, on Fayette street near Calvert, where, it is alleged, very strong ground was taken against the passage of any more troops through Baltimore, and armed resistance to it threatened. On motion of Mr. Ross Winans, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

"Resolved, That in the opinion of this convention the prosecution of the design announced by the President in his late proclamation, of recapturing the forts in the seceded States, will inevitably lead to a sanguinary war, the dissolution of the Union, and the irreconcilable estrangement of the people of the South from the people of the North.

"Resolved, That we protest in the name of the people of Maryland against the garrisoning of Southern forts by militia drawn from the free States; or the quartering of militia from the free States in any of the towns or places of the slaveholding States.

"Resolved, That in the opinion of this convention the massing of large bodies of militia, exclusively from the free States, in the District of Columbia, is uncalled for by any public danger or exigency, is a standing menace to the State of Maryland, and an insult to her loyalty and good faith, and will, if persisted in, alienate her people from a government which thus attempts to overawe them by the presence of armed men and treats them with contempt and distrust.

"Resolved, That the time has arrived when it becomes all good citizens to unite in a common effort to obliterate all party lines which have heretofore unhappily divided us, and to present an unbroken front in the preservation and defense of our interests, our homes and our firesides, to avert the horrors of civil war, and to repel, if need be, any invader who may come to establish a military despotism over us.

"A. C. Robinson, Chairman."

"G. Harlan Williams,
"Albert Ritchie,
"Secretaries."

The names of the members who composed this convention are not given, but the mover of the resolutions and the officers of the meeting were men well known and respected in this community.

The bold and threatening character of the resolutions did not tend to calm the public mind. They did not, however, advocate an attack on the troops.

In Putnam's "Record of the Rebellion," Volume I, page 29, the following statement is made of a meeting which was held on the morning of the 18th of April: "An excited secession meeting was held at Baltimore, Maryland. T. Parkin Scott occupied the chair, and speeches denunciatory of the Administration and the North were made by Wilson C. N. Carr, William Byrne [improperly spelled Burns], President of the National Volunteer Association, and others."

An account of the meeting is before me, written by Mr. Carr, lately deceased, a gentleman entirely trustworthy. He did not know, he says, of the existence of such an association, but on his way down town having seen the notice of a town meeting to be held at Taylor's Hall, to take into consideration the state of affairs, he went to the meeting. Mr. Scott was in the chair and was speaking. He was not making an excited speech, but, on the contrary, was urging the audience to do nothing rashly, but to be moderate and not to interfere with any troops that might attempt to pass through the city. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Carr was urged to go up to the platform and reply to Mr. Scott. I now give Mr. Carr's words. "I went up," he says, "but had no intention of saying anything in opposition to what Mr. Scott had advised the people to do. I was not there as an advocate of secession, but was anxious to see some way opened for reconciliation between the North and South. I did not make an excited speech nor did I denounce the Administration. I saw that I was disappointing the crowd. Some expressed their disapprobation pretty plainly and I cut my speech short. As soon as I finished speaking the meeting adjourned."

After the war was over, Mr. Scott was elected Chief Judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. He was a strong sympathizer with the South, and had the courage of his convictions, but he had been also an opponent of slavery, and I have it from his own lips that years before the war, on a Fourth of July, he had persuaded his mother to liberate all her slaves, although she depended largely on their services for her support. And yet he lived and died a poor man.

On the 16th of April, Marshal Kane addressed a letter to William Crawford, the Baltimore agent of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company, in the following terms:

"Dear Sir:—Is it true as stated that an attempt will be made to pass the volunteers from New York intended to war upon the South over your road to-day? It is important that we have explicit understanding on the subject.

Your friend,

George P. Kane."

This letter was not submitted to me, nor to the board of police. If it had been, it would have been couched in very different language. Mr. Crawford forwarded it to the President of the road, who, on the same day, sent it to Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War.

Mr. Cameron, on April 18th, wrote to Governor Hicks, giving him notice that there were unlawful combinations of citizens of Maryland to impede the transit of United States troops across Maryland on their way to the defense of the capital, and that the President thought it his duty to make it known to the Governor, so that all loyal and patriotic citizens might be warned in time, and that he might be prepared to take immediate and effective measures against it.

On the afternoon of the 18th, Governor Hicks arrived in town. He had prepared a proclamation as Governor of the State, and wished me to issue another as mayor of the city, which I agreed to do. In it he said, among other things, that the unfortunate state of affairs now existing in the country had greatly excited the people of Maryland; that the emergency was great, and that the consequences of a rash step would be fearful. He therefore counselled the people in all earnestness to withhold their hands from whatever might tend to precipitate us into the gulf of discord and ruin gaping to receive us. All powers vested in the Governor of the State would be strenuously exerted to preserve peace and maintain inviolate the honor and integrity of Maryland. He assured the people that no troops would be sent from Maryland, unless it might be for the defense of the national capital. He concluded by saying that the people of this State would in a short time have the opportunity afforded them, in a special election for members of Congress, to express their devotion to the Union, or their desire to see it broken up.

This proclamation is of importance in several respects. It shows the great excitement of the people and the imminent danger of domestic strife. It shows, moreover, that even the Governor of the State had then little idea of the course which he himself was soon about to pursue. If this was the case with the Governor, it could not have been different with thousands of the people. Very soon he became a thorough and uncompromising upholder of the war.

In my proclamation I concurred with the Governor in his determination to preserve the peace and maintain inviolate the honor and integrity of Maryland, and added that I could not withhold my expression of satisfaction at his resolution that no troops should be sent from Maryland to the soil of any other State.

Simultaneously with the passage of the first Northern regiments on their way to Washington, came the news that Virginia had seceded. Two days were crowded with stirring news—a proclamation from the President of the Southern Confederacy offering to issue commissions or letters of marque to privateers, President Lincoln's proclamation declaring a blockade of Southern ports, the Norfolk Navy Yard abandoned, Harper's Ferry evacuated and the arsenal in the hands of Virginia troops. These events, so exciting in themselves, and coming together with the passage of the first troops, greatly increased the danger of an explosion.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT IN BALTIMORE. — THE FIGHT. — THE DEPARTURE FOR WASHINGTON. — CORRESPONDENCE IN REGARD TO THE KILLED AND WOUNDED. — PUBLIC MEETING. — TELEGRAM TO THE PRESIDENT. — NO REPLY. — BURNING OF BRIDGES.

The Sixth Massachusetts Regiment had the honor of being the first to march in obedience to the call of the President, completely equipped and organized. It had a full band and regimental staff. Mustered at Lowell on the morning of the 16th, the day after the proclamation was issued, four companies from Lowell presented themselves, and to these were added two from Lawrence, one from Groton, one from Acton, and one from Worcester; and when the regiment reached Boston, at one o'clock, an additional company was added from that city and another from Stoneham, making eleven in all—about seven hundred men.[7] It was addressed by the Governor of the State in front of the State House. In the city and along the line of the railroad, on the 17th, everywhere, ovations attended them. In the march down Broadway, in New York, on the 18th, the wildest enthusiasm inspired all classes. Similar scenes occurred in the progress through New Jersey and through the city of Philadelphia. At midnight on the 18th, reports reached Philadelphia that the passage of the regiment through Baltimore would be disputed.

An unarmed and un-uniformed Pennsylvania regiment, under Colonel Small, was added to the train, either in Philadelphia or when the train reached the Susquehanna—it has been stated both ways, and I am not sure which account is correct—and the two regiments made the force about seventeen hundred men.

The proper course for the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company was to have given immediate notice to the mayor or board of police of the number of the troops, and the time when they were expected to arrive in the city, so that preparation might have been made to receive them, but no such notice was given. On the contrary, it was purposely withheld, and no information could be obtained from the office of the company, although the marshal of police repeatedly telegraphed to Philadelphia to learn when the troops were to be expected. No news was received until from a half hour to an hour of the time at which they were to arrive. Whatever was the reason that no notice of the approach of the troops was given, it was not because they had no apprehensions of trouble. Mr. Felton, the president of the railroad company, says that before the troops left Philadelphia he called the colonel and principal officers into his office, and told them of the dangers they would probably encounter, and advised that each soldier should load his musket before leaving and be ready for any emergency. Colonel Jones's official report, which is dated, "Capitol, Washington, April 22, 1861," says, "After leaving Philadelphia, I received intimation that the passage through the city of Baltimore would be resisted. I caused ammunition to be distributed and arms loaded, and went personally through the cars, and issued the following order—viz.:

"'The regiment will march through Baltimore in columns of sections, arms at will. You will undoubtedly be insulted, abused, and perhaps assaulted, to which you must pay no attention whatever, but march with your faces square to the front, and pay no attention to the mob, even if they throw stones, bricks, or other missiles; but if you are fired upon, and any of you are hit, your officers will order you to fire. Do not fire into any promiscuous crowds, but select any man whom you may see aiming at you, and be sure you drop him.'"

If due notice had been given, and if this order had been carried out, the danger of a serious disturbance would have been greatly diminished. The plainest dictates of prudence required the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania regiments to march through the city in a body. The Massachusetts regiment was armed with muskets, and could have defended itself, and would also have had aid from the police; and although the Pennsylvania troops were unarmed, they would have been protected by the police just as troops from the same State had been protected on the day before. The mayor and police commissioners would have been present, adding the sanction and authority of their official positions. But the plan adopted laid the troops open to be attacked in detail when they were least able to defend themselves and were out of the reach of assistance from the police. This plan was that when the train reached the President-street or Philadelphia station, in the southeastern part of Baltimore, each car should, according to custom, be detached from the engine and be drawn through the city by four horses for the distance of more than a mile to the Camden-street or Washington station, in the southwestern part of the city. Some one had blundered.

The train of thirty-five cars arrived at President-street Station at about eleven o'clock. The course which the troops had to take was first northerly on President street, four squares to Pratt street, a crowded thoroughfare leading along the heads of the docks, then along Pratt street west for nearly a mile to Howard street, and then south, on Howard street, one square to the Camden-street station.

Drawn by horses across the city at a rapid pace, about nine[8] cars, containing seven companies of the Massachusetts Sixth, reached the Camden-street station, the first carloads being assailed only with jeers and hisses; but the last car, containing Company "K" and Major Watson, was delayed on its passage—according to one account was thrown off the track by obstructions, and had to be replaced with the help of a passing team; paving-stones and other missiles were thrown, the windows were broken, and some of the soldiers were struck. Colonel Jones was in one of the cars which passed through. Near Gay street, it happened that a number of laborers were at work repaving Pratt street, and had taken up the cobble-stones for the purpose of relaying them. As the troops kept passing, the crowd of bystanders grew larger, the excitement and—among many—the feeling of indignation grew more intense; each new aggressive act was the signal and example for further aggression. A cart coming by with a load of sand, the track was blocked by dumping the cartload upon it—I have been told that this was the act of some merchants and clerks of the neighborhood—and then, as a more effectual means of obstruction, some anchors lying near the head of the Gay-street dock were dragged up to and placed across the track.[9]

The next car being stopped by these obstructions, the driver attached the horses to the rear end of the car and drove it back, with the soldiers, to the President-street station, the rest of the cars also, of course, having to turn back, or—if any of them had not yet started—to remain where they were at the depot. In the cars thus stopped and turned back there were four companies, "C," "D," "I" and "L," under Captains Follansbee, Hart, Pickering and Dike; also the band, which, I believe, did not leave the depot, and which remained there with the unarmed Pennsylvania regiment. These four companies, in all about 220 men, formed on President street, in the midst of a dense and angry crowd, which threatened and pressed upon the troops, uttering cheers for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy, and groans for Lincoln and the North, with much abusive language. As the soldiers advanced along President street, the commotion increased; one of the band of rioters appeared bearing a Confederate flag, and it was carried a considerable distance before it was torn from its staff by citizens. Stones were thrown in great numbers, and at the corner of Fawn street two of the soldiers were knocked down by stones and seriously injured. In crossing Pratt-street bridge, the troops had to pick their way over joists and scantling, which by this time had been placed on the bridge to obstruct their passage.

Colonel Jones's official report, from which I have already quoted, thus describes what happened after the four companies left the cars. As Colonel Jones was not present during the march, but obtained the particulars from others, it is not surprising that his account contains errors. These will be pointed out and corrected later:

"They proceeded to march in accordance with orders, and had proceeded but a short distance before they were furiously attacked by a shower of missiles, which came faster as they advanced. They increased their step to double-quick, which seemed to infuriate the mob, as it evidently impressed the mob with the idea that the soldiers dared not fire or had no ammunition, and pistol-shots were numerously fired into the ranks, and one soldier fell dead. The order "Fire!" was given, and it was executed; in consequence several of the mob fell, and the soldiers again advanced hastily. The mayor of Baltimore placed himself at the head of the column beside Captain Follansbee, and proceeded with them a short distance, assuring him that he would protect them, and begging him not to let the men fire. But the mayor's patience was soon exhausted, and he seized a musket from the hands of one of the men, and killed a man therewith; and a policeman, who was in advance of the column, also shot a man with a revolver. They at last reached the cars, and they started immediately for Washington. On going through the train I found there were about one hundred and thirty missing, including the band and field music. Our baggage was seized, and we have not as yet been able to recover any of it. I have found it very difficult to get reliable information in regard to the killed and wounded, but believe there were only three killed.

"As the men went into the cars" [meaning the men who had marched through the city to Camden Station], "I caused the blinds to the cars to be closed, and took every precaution to prevent any shadow of offense to the people of Baltimore, but still the stones flew thick and fast into the train, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I could prevent the troops from leaving the cars and revenging the death of their comrades. After a volley of stones, some one of the soldiers fired and killed a Mr. Davis, who, I ascertained by reliable witnesses, threw a stone into the car." This is incorrectly stated, as will hereafter appear.

It is proper that I should now go back and take up the narration from my own point of view.

On the morning of the 19th of April I was at my law office in Saint Paul street after ten o'clock, when three members of the city council came to me with a message from Marshal Kane, informing me that he had just received intelligence that troops were about to arrive—I did not learn how many—and that he apprehended a disturbance, and requesting me to go to the Camden-street station. I immediately hastened to the office of the board of police, and found that they had received a similar notice. The Counsellor of the City, Mr. George M. Gill, and myself then drove rapidly in a carriage to the Camden-street station. The police commissioners followed, and, on reaching the station, we found Marshal Kane on the ground and the police coming in in squads. A large and angry crowd had assembled, but were restrained by the police from committing any serious breach of the peace.

After considerable delay seven of the eleven companies of the Massachusetts regiment arrived at the station, as already mentioned, and I saw that the windows of the last car were badly broken. No one to whom I applied could inform me whether more troops were expected or not. At this time an alarm was given that the mob was about to tear up the rails in advance of the train on the Washington road, and Marshal Kane ordered some of his men to go out the road as far as necessary to protect the track. Soon afterward, and when I was about to leave the Camden-street station, supposing all danger to be over, news was brought to Police Commissioner Davis and myself, who were standing together, that some troops had been left behind, and that the mob was tearing up the track on Pratt street, so as to obstruct the progress of the cars, which were coming to the Camden-street station. Mr. Davis immediately ran to summon the marshal, who was at the station with a body of police, to be sent to the point of danger, while I hastened alone in the same direction. On arriving at about Smith's Wharf, foot of Gay street, I found that anchors had been placed on the track, and that Sergeant McComas and four policemen who were with him were not allowed by a group of rioters to remove the obstruction. I at once ordered the anchors to be removed, and my authority was not resisted. I hurried on, and, approaching Pratt-street bridge, I saw a battalion, which proved to be four companies of the Massachusetts regiment which had crossed the bridge, coming towards me in double-quick time.

They were firing wildly, sometimes backward, over their shoulders. So rapid was the march that they could not stop to take aim. The mob, which was not very large, as it seemed to me, was pursuing with shouts and stones, and, I think, an occasional pistol-shot. The uproar was furious. I ran at once to the head of the column, some persons in the crowd shouting, "Here comes the mayor." I shook hands with the officer in command, Captain Follansbee, saying as I did so, "I am the mayor of Baltimore." The captain greeted me cordially. I at once objected to the double-quick, which was immediately stopped. I placed myself by his side, and marched with him. He said, "We have been attacked without provocation," or words to that effect. I replied, "You must defend yourselves." I expected that he would face his men to the rear, and, after giving warning, would fire if necessary. But I said no more, for I immediately felt that, as mayor of the city, it was not my province to volunteer such advice. Once before in my life I had taken part in opposing a formidable riot, and had learned by experience that the safest and most humane manner of quelling a mob is to meet it at the beginning with armed resistance.

The column continued its march. There was neither concert of action nor organization among the rioters. They were armed only with such stones or missiles as they could pick up, and a few pistols. My presence for a short time had some effect, but very soon the attack was renewed with greater violence. The mob grew bolder. Stones flew thick and fast. Rioters rushed at the soldiers and attempted to snatch their muskets, and at least on two occasions succeeded. With one of these muskets a soldier was killed. Men fell on both sides. A young lawyer, then and now known as a quiet citizen, seized a flag of one of the companies and nearly tore it from its staff. He was shot through the thigh, and was carried home apparently a dying man, but he survived to enter the army of the Confederacy, where he rose to the rank of captain, and he afterward returned to Baltimore, where he still lives. The soldiers fired at will. There was no firing by platoons, and I heard no order given to fire. I remember that at the corner of South street several citizens standing in a group fell, either killed or wounded. It was impossible for the troops to discriminate between the rioters and the by-standers, but the latter seemed to suffer most, because, as the main attack was from the mob pursuing the soldiers from the rear, they, in their march, could not easily face backward to fire, but could shoot at those whom they passed on the street. Near the corner of Light street a soldier was severely wounded, who afterward died, and a boy on a vessel lying in the dock was killed, and about the same place three soldiers at the head of the column leveled their muskets and fired into a group standing on the sidewalk, who, as far as I could see, were taking no active part. The shots took effect, but I cannot say how many fell. I cried out, waving my umbrella to emphasize my words, "For God's sake don't shoot!" but it was too late. The statement that I begged Captain Follansbee not to let the men fire is incorrect, although on this occasion I did say, "Don't shoot." It then seemed to me that I was in the wrong place, for my presence did not avail to protect either the soldiers or the citizens, and I stepped out from the column. Just at this moment a boy ran forward and handed to me a discharged musket which had fallen from one of the soldiers. I took it from him and hastened into the nearest shop, asking the person in charge to keep it safely, and returned immediately to the street. This boy was far from being alone in his sympathy for the troops, but their friends were powerless, except to care for the wounded and remove the dead. The statement in Colonel Jones's report that I seized a musket and killed one of the rioters is entirely incorrect. The smoking musket seen in my hands was no doubt the foundation for it. There is no foundation for the other statement that one of the police shot a man with a revolver. At the moment when I returned to the street, Marshal Kane, with about fifty policemen (as I then supposed, but I have since ascertained that in fact there were not so many), came at a run from the direction of the Camden-street station, and throwing themselves in the rear of the troops, they formed a line in front of the mob, and with drawn revolvers kept it back. This was between Light and Charles streets. Marshal Kane's voice shouted, "Keep back, men, or I shoot!" This movement, which I saw myself, was gallantly executed, and was perfectly successful. The mob recoiled like water from a rock. One of the leading rioters, then a young man, now a peaceful merchant, tried, as he has himself told me, to pass the line, but the marshal seized him and vowed he would shoot if the attempt was made. This nearly ended the fight, and the column passed on under the protection of the police, without serious molestation, to Camden Station.[10] I had accompanied the troops for more than a third of a mile, and regarded the danger as now over. At Camden-street Station there was rioting and confusion. Commissioner Davis assisted in placing the soldiers in the cars for Washington. Some muskets were pointed out of the windows by the soldiers. To this he earnestly objected, as likely to bring on a renewal of the fight, and he advised the blinds to be closed. The muskets were then withdrawn and the blinds closed, by military order, as stated by Colonel Jones.

At last, about a quarter before one o'clock, the train, consisting of thirteen cars filled with troops, moved out of Camden Station amid the hisses and groans of the multitude, and passed safely on to Washington. At the outskirts of the city, half a mile or more beyond the station, occurred the unfortunate incident of the killing of Robert W. Davis. This gentleman, a well-known dry-goods merchant, was standing on a vacant lot near the track with two friends, and as the train went by they raised a cheer for Jefferson Davis and the South, when he was immediately shot dead by one of the soldiers from a car-window, several firing at once. There were no rioters near them, and they did not know that the troops had been attacked on their march through the city. There was no "volley of stones" thrown just before Mr. Davis was killed, nor did he or his friends throw any.[11] This was the last of the casualties of the day, and was by far the most serious and unfortunate in its consequences, for it was not unnaturally made the most of to inflame the minds of the people against the Northern troops. Had it not been for this incident, there would perhaps have been among many of our people a keener sense of blame attaching to themselves as the aggressors. Four of the Massachusetts regiment were killed and thirty-six wounded. Twelve citizens were killed, including Mr. Davis. The number of wounded among the latter has never been ascertained. As the fighting was at close quarters, the small number of casualties shows that it was not so severe as has generally been supposed.

But peace even for the day had not come. The unarmed Pennsylvanians and the band of the Massachusetts regiment were still at the President-street station, where a mob had assembled, and the police at that point were not sufficient to protect them. Stones were thrown, and some few of the Pennsylvania troops were hurt, not seriously, I believe. A good many of them were, not unnaturally, seized with a panic, and scattered through the city in different directions. Marshal Kane again appeared on the scene with an adequate force, and an arrangement was made with the railroad company by which the troops were sent back in the direction of Philadelphia. During the afternoon and night a number of stragglers sought the aid of the police and were cared for at one of the station-houses.

The following card of Captain Dike, who commanded Company "C" of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, appeared in the Boston Courier:

"Baltimore, April 25, 1861.

"It is but an act of justice that induces me to say to my friends who may feel any interest, and to the community generally, that in the affair which occurred in this city on Friday, the 19th instant, the mayor and city authorities should be exonerated from blame or censure, as they did all in their power, as far as my knowledge extends, to quell the riot, and Mayor Brown attested the sincerity of his desire to preserve the peace, and pass our regiment safely through the city, by marching at the head of its column, and remaining there at the risk of his life. Candor could not permit me to say less, and a desire to place the conduct of the authorities here on the occasion in a right position, as well as to allay feelings, urges me to this sheer act of justice.

John H. Dike,
"Captain Company 'C,' Seventh Regiment, attached to Sixth Regiment Massachusetts V. M."

In a letter to Marshal Kane, Colonel Jones wrote as follows:

"Headquarters Sixth Regiment M. V. M.

"Washington, D. C., April 28, 1861.

"Marshal Kane, Baltimore, Maryland.

"Please deliver the bodies of the deceased soldiers belonging to my regiment to Murrill S. Wright, Esq., who is authorized to receive them, and take charge of them through to Boston, and thereby add one more to the many favors for which, in connection with this matter, I am, with my command, much indebted to you. Many, many thanks for the Christian conduct of the authorities of Baltimore in this truly unfortunate affair.

"I am, with much respect, your obedient servant,

"Edward F. Jones,
"Colonel Sixth Regiment M. V. M."

The following correspondence with the Governor of Massachusetts seems to be entitled to a place in this paper. Gov. Andrew's first telegram cannot be found. The second, which was sent by me in reply, is as follows:

"Baltimore, April 20, 1861.

"To the Honorable John A. Andrew, Governor of Massachusetts.

"Sir:—No one deplores the sad events of yesterday in this city more deeply than myself, but they were inevitable. Our people viewed the passage of armed troops to another State through the streets as an invasion of our soil, and could not be restrained. The authorities exerted themselves to the best of their ability, but with only partial success. Governor Hicks was present, and concurs in all my views as to the proceedings now necessary for our protection. When are these scenes to cease? Are we to have a war of sections? God forbid! The bodies of the Massachusetts soldiers could not be sent out to Boston, as you requested, all communication between this city and Philadelphia by railroad and with Boston by steamer having ceased, but they have been placed in cemented coffins, and will be placed with proper funeral ceremonies in the mausoleum of Greenmount Cemetery, where they shall be retained until further directions are received from you. The wounded are tenderly cared for. I appreciate your offer, but Baltimore will claim it as her right to pay all expenses incurred."

"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

"Geo. Wm. Brown,
"Mayor of Baltimore."

To this the following reply was returned by the Governor:

"To His Honor George W. Brown, Mayor of Baltimore.

"Dear Sir:—I appreciate your kind attention to our wounded and our dead, and trust that at the earliest moment the remains of our fallen will return to us. I am overwhelmed with surprise that a peaceful march of American citizens over the highway to the defense of our common capital should be deemed aggressive to Baltimoreans. Through New York the march was triumphal.

John A. Andrew,
"Governor of Massachusetts."

This correspondence carries the narrative beyond the nineteenth of April, and I now return to the remaining events of that day.

After the news spread through the city of the fight in the streets, and especially of the killing of Mr. Davis, the excitement became intense. It was manifest that no more troops, while the excitement lasted, could pass through without a bloody conflict. All citizens, no matter what were their political opinions, appeared to agree in this—the strongest friends of the Union as well as its foes. However such a conflict might terminate, the result would be disastrous. In each case it might bring down the vengeance of the North upon the city. If the mob succeeded, it would probably precipitate the city, and perhaps the State, into a temporary secession. Such an event all who had not lost their reason deprecated. The immediate and pressing necessity was that no more troops should arrive.

Governor Hicks called out the military for the preservation of the peace and the protection of the city.

An immense public meeting assembled in Monument Square. Governor Hicks, the mayor, Mr. S. Teackle Wallis, and others, addressed it.

In my speech I insisted on the maintenance of peace and order in the city. I denied that the right of a State to secede from the Union was granted by the Constitution. This was received with groans and shouts of disapproval by a part of the crowd, but I maintained my ground. I deprecated war on the seceding States, and strongly expressed the opinion that the South could not be conquered. I approved of Governor Hicks's determination to send no troops from Maryland to invade the South. I further endeavored to calm the people by informing them of the efforts made by Governor Hicks and myself to prevent the passage of more troops through the city.

Governor Hicks said: "I coincide in the sentiment of your worthy mayor. After three conferences we have agreed, and I bow in submission to the people. I am a Marylander; I love my State and I love the Union, but I will suffer my right arm to be torn from my body before I will raise it to strike a sister State."

A dispatch had previously been sent by Governor Hicks and myself to the President of the United States as follows: "A collision between the citizens and the Northern troops has taken place in Baltimore, and the excitement is fearful. Send no troops here. We will endeavor to prevent all bloodshed. A public meeting of citizens has been called, and the troops of the State have been called out to preserve the peace. They will be enough."

Immediately afterward, Messrs. H. Lennox Bond, a Republican, then Judge of the Criminal Court of Baltimore, and now Judge of the Circuit Court of the United States; George W. Dobbin, an eminent lawyer, and John C. Brune, President of the Board of Trade, went to Washington at my request, bearing the following letter to the President:

"Mayor's Office, Baltimore, April 19, 1861.

"Sir:—This will be presented to you by the Hon. H. Lennox Bond, and George W. Dobbin, and John C. Brune, Esqs., who will proceed to Washington by an express train at my request, in order to explain fully the fearful condition of affairs in this city. The people are exasperated to the highest degree by the passage of troops, and the citizens are universally decided in the opinion that no more should be ordered to come. The authorities of the city did their best to-day to protect both strangers and citizens and to prevent a collision, but in vain, and, but for their great efforts, a fearful slaughter would have occurred. Under these circumstances it is my solemn duty to inform you that it is not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless they fight their way at every step. I therefore hope and trust and most earnestly request that no more troops be permitted or ordered by the Government to pass through the city. If they should attempt it, the responsibility for the blood shed will not rest upon me.

"With great respect, your obedient servant,

"Geo. Wm. Brown, Mayor.

"To His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President United States."

To this Governor Hicks added: "I have been in Baltimore City since Tuesday evening last, and coöperated with Mayor G. W. Brown in his untiring efforts to allay and prevent the excitement and suppress the fearful outbreak as indicated above, and I fully concur in all that is said by him in the above communication."

No reply came from Washington. The city authorities were left to act on their own responsibility. Late at night reports came of troops being on their way both from Harrisburg and Philadelphia. It was impossible that they could pass through the city without fighting and bloodshed. In this emergency, the board of police, including the mayor, immediately assembled for consultation, and came to the conclusion that it was necessary to burn or disable the bridges on both railroads so far as was required to prevent the ingress of troops. This was accordingly done at once, some of the police and a detachment of the Maryland Guard being sent out to do the work. Governor Hicks was first consulted and urged to give his consent, for we desired that he should share with us the responsibility of taking this grave step. This consent he distinctly gave in my presence and in the presence of several others, and although there was an attempt afterward to deny the fact that he so consented, there can be no doubt whatever about the matter. He was in my house at the time, where, on my invitation, he had taken refuge, thinking that he was in some personal danger at the hotel where he was staying. Early the next morning the Governor returned to Annapolis, and after this the city authorities had to bear alone the responsibilities which the anomalous state of things in Baltimore had brought upon them.

On the Philadelphia Railroad the detachment sent out by special train for the purpose of burning the bridges went as far as the Bush River, and the long bridge there, and the still longer one over the wide estuary of the Gunpowder, a few miles nearer Baltimore, were partially burned. It is an interesting fact that just as this party arrived at the Bush River bridge, a volunteer party of five gentlemen from Baltimore reached the same place on the same errand. They had ridden on horseback by night to the river, and had then gone by boat to the bridge for the purpose of burning it, and in fact they stayed at the bridge and continued the work of burning until the afternoon.

CHAPTER V.

APRIL 20TH, INCREASING EXCITEMENT. — APPROPRIATION OF $500,000 FOR DEFENSE OF THE CITY. — CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRESIDENT AND GOVERNOR. — MEN ENROLLED. — APPREHENDED ATTACK ON FORT McHENRY. — MARSHAL KANE. — INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT, CABINET AND GENERAL SCOTT. — GENERAL BUTLER, WITH THE EIGHTH MASSACHUSETTS, PROCEEDS TO ANNAPOLIS AND WASHINGTON. — BALTIMORE IN A STATE OF ARMED NEUTRALITY.

On Saturday morning, the 20th, the excitement and alarm had greatly increased. Up to this time no answer had been received from Washington. The silence became unbearable. Were more troops to be forced through the city at any cost? If so, how were they to come, by land or water? Were the guns of Fort McHenry to be turned upon the inhabitants? Was Baltimore to be compelled at once to determine whether she would side with the North or with the South? Or was she temporarily to isolate herself and wait until the frenzy had in some measure spent its force and reason had begun to resume its sway? In any case it was plain that the authorities must have the power placed in their hands of controlling any outbreak which might occur. This was the general opinion. Union men and disunion men appeared on the streets with arms in their hands. A time like that predicted in Scripture seemed to have come, when he who had no sword would sell his garment to buy one.

About ten A. M. the city council assembled and immediately appropriated $500,000, to be expended under my direction as mayor, for the purpose of putting the city in a complete state of defense against any description of danger arising or which might arise out of the present crisis. The banks of the city promptly held a meeting, and a few hours afterward a committee appointed by them, consisting of three bank presidents, Johns Hopkins, John Clark and Columbus O'Donnell, all wealthy Union men, placed the whole sum in advance at my disposal. Mr. Scharf, in his "History of Maryland," Volume 3, page 416, says, in a footnote, that this action of the city authorities was endorsed by the editors of the Sun, American, Exchange, German Correspondent, Clipper, South, etc. Other considerable sums were contributed by individuals and firms without respect to party.

On the same morning I received a dispatch from Messrs. Bond, Dobbin and Brune, the committee who had gone to Washington, which said: "We have seen the President and General Scott. We have from the former a letter to the mayor and Governor declaring that no troops shall be brought to Baltimore, if, in a military point of view and without interruption from opposition, they can be marched around Baltimore."

As the Governor had left Baltimore for Annapolis early in the morning, I telegraphed him as follows:

"Baltimore, April 20, 1861.

"To Governor Hicks.

"Letter from President and General Scott. No troops to pass through Baltimore if as a military force they can march around. I will answer that every effort will be made to prevent parties leaving the city to molest them, but cannot guarantee against acts of individuals not organized. Do you approve?

Geo. Wm. Brown."

This telegram was based on that from Messrs. Bond, Dobbin and Brune. The letter referred to had not been received when my telegram to Governor Hicks was dispatched. I was mistaken in supposing that General Scott had signed the letter as well as the President.

President Lincoln's letter was as follows:

"Washington, April 20, 1861.

"Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown.

"Gentlemen:—Your letter by Messrs. Bond, Dobbin and Brune is received. I tender you both my sincere thanks for your efforts to keep the peace in the trying situation in which you are placed. For the future troops must be brought here, but I make no point of bringing them through Baltimore.

"Without any military knowledge myself, of course I must leave details to General Scott. He hastily said this morning, in presence of these gentlemen, 'March them around Baltimore, and not through it.'

"I sincerely hope the General, on fuller reflection, will consider this practical and proper, and that you will not object to it.

"By this, a collision of the people of Baltimore with the troops will be avoided unless they go out of their way to seek it. I hope you will exert your influence to prevent this.

"Now and ever I shall do all in my power for peace consistently with the maintenance of government.

"Your obedient servant,

A. Lincoln."

Governor Hicks replied as follows to my telegram:

"Annapolis, April 20, 1861.

"To the Mayor of Baltimore.

"Your dispatch received. I hoped they would send no more troops through Maryland, but as we have no right to demand that, I am glad no more are to be sent through Baltimore. I know you will do all in your power to preserve the peace.

Thos. H. Hicks."

I then telegraphed to the President as follows:

"Baltimore, Maryland, April 20, 1861.

"To President Lincoln.

"Every effort will be made to prevent parties leaving the city to molest troops marching to Washington. Baltimore seeks only to protect herself. Governor Hicks has gone to Annapolis, but I have telegraphed to him.

"Geo. Wm. Brown, Mayor of Baltimore."

After the receipt of the dispatch from Messrs. Bond, Dobbin and Brune, another committee was sent to Washington, consisting of Messrs. Anthony Kennedy, Senator of the United States, and J. Morrison Harris, member of the House of Representatives, both Union men, who sent a dispatch to me saying that they "had seen the President, Secretaries of State, Treasury and War, and also General Scott. The result is the transmission of orders that will stop the passage of troops through or around the city."

Preparations for the defense of the city were nevertheless continued. With this object I issued a notice in which I said: "All citizens having arms suitable for the defense of the city, and which they are willing to contribute for the purpose, are requested to deposit them at the office of the marshal of police."

The board of police enrolled temporarily a considerable number of men and placed them under the command of Colonel Isaac R. Trimble. He informs me that the number amounted to more than fifteen thousand, about three-fourths armed with muskets, shotguns and pistols.

This gentleman was afterward a Major-General in the Confederate Army, where he distinguished himself. He lost a leg at Gettysburg.

By this means not only was the inadequate number of the police supplemented, but many who would otherwise have been the disturbers of the peace became its defenders. And, indeed, not a few of the men enrolled, who thought and hoped that their enrollment meant war, were disappointed to find that the prevention of war was the object of the city authorities, and afterwards found their way into the Confederacy.

For some days it looked very much as if Baltimore had taken her stand decisively with the South; at all events, the outward expressions of Southern feeling were very emphatic, and the Union sentiment temporarily disappeared.

Early on the morning of Saturday, the 20th, a large Confederate flag floated from the headquarters of a States Rights club on Fayette street near Calvert, and on the afternoon of the same day the Minute Men, a Union club, whose headquarters were on Baltimore street, gave a most significant indication of the strength of the wave of feeling which swept over our people by hauling down the National colors and running up in their stead the State flag of Maryland, amid the cheers of the crowd.[12] Everywhere on the streets men and boys were wearing badges which displayed miniature Confederate flags, and were cheering the Southern cause. Military companies began to arrive from the counties. On Saturday, first came a company of seventy men from Frederick, under Captain Bradley T. Johnson, afterward General in the Southern Army, and next two cavalry companies from Baltimore County, and one from Anne Arundel County. These last, the Patapsco Dragoons, some thirty men, a sturdy-looking body of yeomanry, rode straight to the City Hall and drew up, expecting to be received with a speech of welcome from the mayor. I made them a very brief address, and informed them that dispatches received from Washington had postponed the necessity for their services, whereupon they started homeward amid cheers, their bugler striking up "Dixie," which was the first time I heard that tune. A few days after, they came into Baltimore again. On Sunday came in the Howard County Dragoons, and by steamboat that morning two companies from Talbot County, and soon it was reported that from Harford, Cecil, Carroll and Prince George's, companies were on their way. All the city companies of uniformed militia were, of course, under arms. Three batteries of light artillery were in the streets, among them the light field-pieces belonging to the military school at Catonsville, but these the reverend rector of the school, a strong Union man, had thoughtfully spiked.

The United States arsenal at Pikesville, at the time unoccupied, was taken possession of by some Baltimore County troops.

From the local columns of the American of the 22d, a paper which was strongly on the Union side, I take the following paragraph:

"WAR SPIRIT ON SATURDAY.

"The war spirit raged throughout the city and among all classes during Saturday with an ardor which seemed to gather fresh force each hour.... All were united in a determination to resist at every hazard the passage of troops through Baltimore.... Armed men were marching through the streets, and the military were moving about in every direction, and it is evident that Baltimore is to be the battlefield of the Southern revolution."

And from the American of Tuesday, 23d:

"At the works of the Messrs. Winans their entire force is engaged in the making of pikes, and in casting balls of every description for cannon, the steam gun,[13] rifles, muskets, etc., which they are turning out very rapidly."

And a very significant paragraph from the Sun of the same day:

"Yesterday morning between 300 and 400 of our most respectable colored residents made a tender of their services to the city authorities. The mayor thanked them for their offer, and informed them that their services will be called for if they can be made in any way available."

Officers from Maryland in the United States Army were sending in their resignations. Colonel (afterward General) Huger, of South Carolina, who had recently resigned, and was in Baltimore at the time, was made Colonel of the Fifty-third Regiment, composed of the Independent Greys and the six companies of the Maryland Guard.

On Monday morning, the 22d, I issued an order directing that all the drinking-saloons should be closed that day, and the order was enforced.

On Saturday, April 20th, Captain John C. Robinson, now Major-General, then in command at Fort McHenry, which stands at the entrance of the harbor, wrote to Colonel L. Thomas, Adjutant-General of the United States Army, that he would probably be attacked that night, but he believed he could hold the fort.

In the September number, for the year 1885, of American History there is an article written by General Robinson, entitled "Baltimore in 1861," in which he speaks of the apprehended attack on the fort, and of the conduct of the Baltimore authorities.

He says that about nine o'clock on the evening of the 20th, Police Commissioner Davis called at the fort, bringing a letter, dated eight o'clock P. M. of the same evening, from Charles Howard, the president of the board, which he quotes at length, and which states that, from rumors that had reached the board, they were apprehensive that the commander of the fort might be annoyed by lawless and disorderly characters approaching the walls of the fort, and they proposed to send a guard of perhaps two hundred men to station themselves on Whetstone Point, of course beyond the outer limits of the fort, with orders to arrest and hand over to the civil authorities any evil-disposed and disorderly persons who might approach the fort. The letter further stated that this duty would have been confided to the police force, but their services were so imperatively required elsewhere that it would be impossible to detail a sufficient number, and this duty had therefore been entrusted to a detachment of the regular organized militia of the State, then called out pursuant to law, and actually in the service of the State. It was added that the commanding officer of the detachment would be ordered to communicate with Captain Robinson. The letter closed with repeating the assurance verbally given to Captain Robinson in the morning that no disturbance at or near the post should be made with the sanction of any of the constituted authorities of the city of Baltimore; but, on the contrary, all their powers should be exerted to prevent anything of the kind by any parties. A postscript stated that there might perhaps be a troop of volunteer cavalry with the detachment.

General Robinson continues:

"I did not question the good faith of Mr. Howard, but Commissioner Davis verbally stated that they proposed to send the Maryland Guards to help protect the fort. Having made the acquaintance of some of the officers of that organization, and heard them freely express their opinions, I declined the offered support, and then the following conversation occurred:

"Commandant. I am aware, sir, that we are to be attacked to-night. I received notice of it before sundown. If you will go outside with me you will see we are prepared for it. You will find the guns loaded, and men standing by them. As for the Maryland Guards, they cannot come here. I am acquainted with some of those gentlemen, and know what their sentiments are.

"Commissioner Davis. Why, Captain, we are anxious to avoid a collision.

"Commandant. So am I, sir. If you wish to avoid a collision, place your city military anywhere between the city and that chapel on the road, but if they come this side of it, I shall fire on them.

"Commissioner Davis. Would you fire into the city of Baltimore?

"Commandant. I should be sorry to do it, sir, but if it becomes necessary in order to hold this fort, I shall not hesitate for one moment.

"Commissioner Davis (excitedly). I assure you, Captain Robinson, if there is a woman or child killed in that city, there will not be one of you left alive here, sir.

"Commandant. Very well, sir, I will take the chances. Now, I assure you, Mr. Davis, if your Baltimore mob comes down here to-night, you will not have another mob in Baltimore for ten years to come, sir."

Mr. Davis is a well-known and respected citizen of Baltimore, who has filled various important public offices with credit, and at present holds a high position in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. According to his recollection, the interview was more courteous and less dramatic than would be supposed from the account given by General Robinson. Mr. Davis says that the people of Baltimore were acquainted with the defenseless condition of the fort, and that in the excited state of the public mind this fact probably led to the apprehension and consequent rumor that an attempt would be made to capture it. The police authorities believed, and, as it turned out, correctly, that the rumor was without foundation; yet, to avoid the danger of any disturbance whatever, the precautions were taken which are described in the letter of Mr. Howard, and Mr. Davis went in person to deliver it to Captain Robinson.

His interview was not, however, confined to Captain Robinson, but included also other officers of the fort, and Mr. Davis was hospitably received. A conversation ensued in regard to the threatened attack, and, with one exception, was conducted without asperity. A junior officer threatened, in case of an attack, to direct the fire of a cannon on the Washington Monument, which stands in the heart of the city, and to this threat Mr. Davis replied with heat, "If you do that, and if a woman or child is killed, there will be nothing left of you but your brass buttons to tell who you were."

The commandant insisted that the military sent by the board should not approach the fort nearer than the Roman Catholic chapel, a demand to which Mr. Davis readily assented, as that situation commanded the only approach from the city to the fort. In the midst of the conversation the long roll was sounded, and the whole garrison rushed to arms. For a long time, and until the alarm was over, Mr. Davis was left alone.

General Robinson was mistaken in his conjecture, "when it seemed to him that for hours of the night mounted men from the country were crossing the bridges of the Patapsco." There was but one bridge over the Patapsco, known as the Long Bridge, from which any sound of passing horsemen or vehicles of any description could possibly have been heard at the fort. The sounds which did reach the fort from the Long Bridge during the hours of the night were probably the market wagons of Anne Arundel County passing to and from the city on their usual errand, and the one or two companies from that county, which came to Baltimore during the period of disturbance, no doubt rode in over the Long Bridge by daylight.

General Robinson, after describing in his paper the riot of the 19th of April and the unfortunate event of the killing of Mr. Davis, adds: "It is impossible to describe the intense excitement that now prevailed. Only those who saw and felt it can understand or conceive any adequate idea of its extent"; and in this connection he mentions the fact that Marshal Kane, chief of the police force, on the evening of the 19th of April, telegraphed to Bradley T. Johnson, at Frederick, as follows: "Streets red with Maryland blood; send expresses over the mountains of Maryland and Virginia for the riflemen to come without delay. Fresh hordes will be down on us to-morrow. We will fight them and whip them, or die."

The sending of this dispatch was indeed a startling event, creating a new complication and embarrassing in the highest degree to the city authorities. The marshal of police, who had gallantly and successfully protected the national troops on the 18th and 19th, was so carried away by the frenzy of the hour that he had thus on his own responsibility summoned volunteers from Virginia and Maryland to contest the passage of national troops through the city. Different views were taken by members of the board of police. It was considered, on the one hand, that the services of Colonel Kane were, in that crisis, indispensable, because no one could control as he could the secession element of the city, which was then in the ascendant and might get control of the city, and, on the other, that his usefulness had ceased, because not only had the gravest offense been given to the Union sentiment of the city by this dispatch, but the authorities in Washington, while he was at the head of the police, could no longer have any confidence in the police, or perhaps in the board itself. The former consideration prevailed.

It is due to Marshal Kane to say that subsequently, and while he remained in office, he performed his duty to the satisfaction of the Board. Some years after the war was over he was elected sheriff, and still later mayor of the city, and in both capacities he enjoyed the respect and regard of the community.

It may with propriety be added that the conservative position and action of the police board were so unsatisfactory to many of the more heated Southern partisans, that a scheme was at one time seriously entertained by them to suppress the board, and transfer the control of the police force to other hands. Happily for all parties, better counsels prevailed.

On Sunday, the 21st of April, with three prominent citizens of Baltimore, I went to Washington, and we there had an interview with the President and Cabinet and General Scott. This interview was of so much importance, that a statement of what occurred was prepared on the same day and was immediately published. It is here given at length:

Baltimore, April 21.

Mayor Brown received a dispatch from the President of the United States at three o'clock A. M. (this morning), directed to himself and Governor Hicks, requesting them to go to Washington by special train, in order to consult with Mr. Lincoln for the preservation of the peace of Maryland. The mayor replied that Governor Hicks was not in the city, and inquired if he should go alone. Receiving an answer by telegraph in the affirmative, his Honor, accompanied by George W. Dobbin, John C. Brune and S. T. Wallis, Esqs., whom he had summoned to attend him, proceeded at once to the station. After a series of delays they were enabled to procure a special train about half-past seven o'clock, in which they arrived at Washington about ten.

They repaired at once to the President's house, where they were admitted to an immediate interview, to which the Cabinet and General Scott were summoned. A long conversation and discussion ensued. The President, upon his part, recognized the good faith of the city and State authorities, and insisted upon his own. He admitted the excited state of feeling in Baltimore, and his desire and duty to avoid the fatal consequences of a collision with the people. He urged, on the other hand, the absolute, irresistible necessity of having a transit through the State for such troops as might be necessary for the protection of the Federal capital. The protection of Washington, he asserted with great earnestness, was the sole object of concentrating troops there, and he protested that none of the troops brought through Maryland were intended for any purposes hostile to the State, or aggressive as against the Southern States. Being now unable to bring them up the Potomac in security, the President must either bring them through Maryland or abandon the capital.

He called on General Scott for his opinion, which the General gave at length, to the effect that troops might be brought through Maryland without going through Baltimore, by either carrying them from Perryville to Annapolis, and thence by rail to Washington, or by bringing them to the Relay House on the Northern Central Railroad [about seven miles north of the city], and marching them to the Relay House on the Washington Railroad [about seven miles south-west of the city], and thence by rail to the capital. If the people would permit them to go by either of these routes uninterruptedly, the necessity of their passing through Baltimore would be avoided. If the people would not permit them a transit thus remote from the city, they must select their own best route, and, if need be, fight their own way through Baltimore—a result which the General earnestly deprecated.

The President expressed his hearty concurrence in the desire to avoid a collision, and said that no more troops should be ordered through Baltimore if they were permitted to go uninterrupted by either of the other routes suggested. In this disposition the Secretary of War expressed his participation.

Mayor Brown assured the President that the city authorities would use all lawful means to prevent their citizens from leaving Baltimore to attack the troops in passing at a distance; but he urged, at the same time, the impossibility of their being able to promise anything more than their best efforts in that direction. The excitement was great, he told the President, the people of all classes were fully aroused, and it was impossible for any one to answer for the consequences of the presence of Northern troops anywhere within our borders. He reminded the President also that the jurisdiction of the city authorities was confined to their own population, and that he could give no promises for the people elsewhere, because he would be unable to keep them if given. The President frankly acknowledged this difficulty, and said that the Government would only ask the city authorities to use their best efforts with respect to those under their jurisdiction.

The interview terminated with the distinct assurance on the part of the President that no more troops would be sent through Baltimore, unless obstructed in their transit in other directions, and with the understanding that the city authorities should do their best to restrain their own people.

The Mayor and his companions availed themselves of the President's full discussion of the day to urge upon him respectfully, but in the most earnest manner, a course of policy which would give peace to the country, and especially the withdrawal of all orders contemplating the passage of troops through any part of Maryland.

On returning to the cars, and when just about to leave, about 2 P. M., the Mayor received a dispatch from Mr. Garrett (the President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) announcing the approach of troops to Cockeysville [about fourteen miles from Baltimore on the Northern Central Railroad], and the excitement consequent upon it in the city. Mr. Brown and his companions returned at once to the President and asked an immediate audience, which was promptly given. The Mayor exhibited Mr. Garrett's dispatch, which gave the President great surprise. He immediately summoned the Secretary of War and General Scott, who soon appeared with other members of the Cabinet. The dispatch was submitted. The President at once, in the most decided way, urged the recall of the troops, saying he had no idea they would be there. Lest there should be the slightest suspicion of bad faith on his part in summoning the Mayor to Washington and allowing troops to march on the city during his absence, he desired that the troops should, if it were practicable, be sent back at once to York or Harrisburg. General Scott adopted the President's views warmly, and an order was accordingly prepared by the Lieutenant-General to that effect, and forwarded by Major Belger, of the Army, who also accompanied the Mayor to this city. The troops at Cockeysville, the Mayor was assured, were not brought there for transit through the city, but were intended to be marched to the Relay House on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. They will proceed to Harrisburg, from there to Philadelphia, and thence by the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal or by Perryville, as Major-General Patterson may direct.

This statement is made by the authority of the Mayor and Messrs. George W. Dobbin, John C. Brune and S. T. Wallis, who accompanied Mr. Brown, and who concurred with him in all particulars in the course adopted by him in the two interviews with Mr. Lincoln.

Geo. Wm. Brown, Mayor.

This statement was written by Mr. Wallis, at the request of his associates, on the train, and was given to the public immediately on their return to the city.

In the course of the first conversation Mr. Simon Cameron called my attention to the fact that an iron bridge on the Northern Central Railway, which, he remarked, belonged to the city of Baltimore, had been disabled by a skilled person so as to inflict little injury on the bridge, and he desired to know by what authority this had been done. Up to this time nothing had been said about the disabling of the bridges. In reply I addressed myself to the President, and said, with much earnestness, that the disabling of this bridge, and of the other bridges, had been done by authority, as the reader has already been told, and that it was a measure of protection on a sudden emergency, designed to prevent bloodshed in the city of Baltimore, and not an act of hostility towards the General Government; that the people of Maryland had always been deeply attached to the Union, which had been shown on all occasions, but that they, including the citizens of Baltimore, regarded the proclamation calling for 75,000 troops as an act of war on the South, and a violation of its constitutional rights, and that it was not surprising that a high-spirited people, holding such opinions, should resent the passage of Northern troops through their city for such a purpose.

Mr. Lincoln was greatly moved, and, springing up from his chair, walked backward and forward through the apartment. He said, with great feeling, "Mr. Brown, I am not a learned man! I am not a learned man!" that his proclamation had not been correctly understood; that he had no intention of bringing on war, but that his purpose was to defend the capital, which was in danger of being bombarded from the heights across the Potomac.

I am giving here only a part of a frank and full conversation, in which others present participated.

The telegram of Mr. Garrett to me referred to in the preceding statement is in the following words: "Three thousand Northern troops are reported to be at Cockeysville. Intense excitement prevails. Churches have been dismissed and the people are arming in mass. To prevent terrific bloodshed, the result of your interview and arrangement is awaited."

To this the following reply to Mr. Garrett was made by me: "Your telegram received on our return from an interview with the President, Cabinet and General Scott. Be calm and do nothing until you hear from me again. I return to see the President at once and will telegraph again. Wallis, Brune and Dobbin are with me."

Accordingly, after the second interview, the following dispatch was sent by me to Mr. Garrett: "We have again seen the President, General Scott, Secretary of War and other members of the Cabinet, and the troops are ordered to return forthwith to Harrisburg. A messenger goes with us from General Scott. We return immediately."

Mr. Garrett's telegram was not exaggerated. It was a fearful day in Baltimore. Women and children, and men, too, were wild with excitement. A certainty of a fight in the streets if Northern troops should enter was the pressing danger. Those who were arming in hot haste to resist the passage of Northern troops little recked of the fearful risk to which they were exposing themselves and all they held dear. It was well for the city and State that the President had decided as he did. When the President gave his deliberate decision that the troops should pass around Baltimore and not through it, General Scott, stern soldier as he sometimes was, said with emotion, "Mr. President, I thank you for this, and God will bless you for it."

From the depth of our hearts my colleagues and myself thanked both the General and the President.

The troops on the line of the Northern Central Railway—some 2400 men, about half of them armed—did not receive their orders to return to Pennsylvania until after several days. As they had expected to make the journey to Washington by rail, they were naturally not well equipped or supplied for camp life. I take the following from the Sun of April 23d: "By order of Marshal Kane, several wagon-loads of bread and meat were sent to the camp of the Pennsylvania troops, it being understood that a number were sick and suffering for proper food and nourishment.... One of the Pennsylvanians died on Sunday and was buried within the encampment. Two more died yesterday and a number of others were on the sick list. The troops were deficient in food, having nothing but crackers to feed upon."

The Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, under command of General Butler, was the next which passed through Maryland. It reached Perryville, on the Susquehanna, by rail on the 20th, and there embarked on the steamboat Maryland, arriving at Annapolis early on the morning of the 21st. Governor Hicks addressed the General a note advising that he should not land his men, on account of the great excitement there, and stated that he had telegraphed to that effect to the Secretary of War.

The Governor also wrote to the President, advising him to order elsewhere the troops then off Annapolis, and to send no more through Maryland, and added the surprising suggestion that Lord Lyons, the British Minister, be requested to act as mediator between the contending parties of the country.

The troops, however, were landed without opposition. The railway from Annapolis leading to the Washington road had, in some places, been torn up, but it was promptly repaired by the soldiers, and by the 25th an unobstructed route was opened through Annapolis to Washington.

Horace Greeley, in his book called "The American Conflict," denounces with characteristic vehemence and severity of language the proceedings of the city authorities. He scouts "the demands" of the Mayor and his associates, whom he designates as "Messrs. Brown & Co." He insists that practically on the morning of the 20th of April Maryland was a member of the Southern Confederacy, and that her Governor spoke and acted the bidding of a cabal of the ablest and most envenomed traitors.

It is true that the city then, and for days afterwards, was in an anomalous condition, which may be best described as one of "armed neutrality"; but it is not true that in any sense it was, on the 20th of April, or at any other time, a member of the Southern Confederacy. On the contrary, while many, especially among the young and reckless, were doing their utmost to place it in that position, regardless of consequences, and would, if they could, have forced the hands of the city authorities, it was their conduct which prevented such a catastrophe. Temporizing and delay were necessary. As soon as passions had time to cool, a strong reaction set in and the people rapidly divided into two parties—one on the side of the North, and the other on the side of the South; but whatever might be their personal or political sympathies, it was clear to all who had not lost their reason that Maryland, which lay open from the North by both land and sea, would be kept in the Union for the sake of the national capital, even if it required the united power of the nation to accomplish the object. The telegraph wires on the lines leading to the North had been cut, and for some days the city was without regular telegraphic connection. For a longer time the mails were interrupted and travel was stopped. The buoys in the harbor were temporarily removed. The business interests of the city of course suffered under these interruptions, and would be paralyzed if such isolation were to continue, and the merchants soon began to demand that the channels of trade should be reopened to the north and east.

The immediate duty of the city authorities was to keep the peace and protect the city, and, without going into details or discussing the conduct of individuals, I shall leave others to speak of the manner in which it was performed.

Colonel Scharf, in his "History of Maryland," Volume III, p. 415, sums up the matter as follows: "In such a period of intense excitement, many foolish and unnecessary acts were undoubtedly done by persons in the employment of the city, as well as by private individuals, but it is undoubtedly true that the Mayor and board of police commissioners were inflexibly determined to resist all attempts to force the city into secession or into acts of hostility to the Federal Government, and that they successfully accomplished their purpose. If they had been otherwise disposed, they could easily have effected their object."

CHAPTER VI.

SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. — REPORT OF THE BOARD OF POLICE. — SUPPRESSION OF THE FLAGS. — ON THE 5TH OF MAY, GENERAL BUTLER TAKES POSITION SEVEN MILES FROM BALTIMORE. — ON THE 13TH OF MAY, HE ENTERS BALTIMORE AND FORTIFIES FEDERAL HILL. — THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY WILL TAKE NO STEPS TOWARDS SECESSION. — MANY YOUNG MEN JOIN THE ARMY OF THE CONFEDERACY.

On the 22d of April, Governor Hicks convened the General Assembly of the State, to meet in special session at Annapolis on the 26th, to deliberate and consider of the condition of the State, and to take such measures as in their wisdom they might deem fit to maintain peace and order and security within its limits.

On the 24th of April, "in consequence of the extraordinary state of affairs," Governor Hicks changed the meeting of the Assembly to Frederick. The candidates for the House of Delegates for the city of Baltimore, who had been returned as elected to the General Assembly in 1859, had been refused their seats, as previously stated, and a new election in the city had therefore become necessary to fill the vacancy.

A special election for that purpose was accordingly held in the city on the 24th instant. Only a States Rights ticket was presented, for which nine thousand two hundred and forty-four votes were cast. The candidates elected were: John C. Brune, Ross Winans, Henry M. Warfield, J. Hanson Thomas, T. Parkin Scott, H. M. Morfit, S. Teackle Wallis, Charles H. Pitts, William G. Harrison and Lawrence Sangston, well-known and respected citizens, and the majority of them nominated because of their known conservatism and declared opposition to violent measures.

This General Assembly, which contained men of unusual weight and force of character, will ever remain memorable in Maryland for the courage and ability with which it maintained the constitutional rights of the State.

On the 3d of May, the board of police made a report of its proceedings to the Legislature of the State, signed by Charles Howard, President. After speaking of the disabling of the railroads, it concludes as follows: