416

ATTITUDE OF THE PUBLIC AUTHORITIES.

assured them that they should have ample assistance from his county (Frederick), when they marched off, shouting for "Jeff. Davis and a Southern Confederacy," and saluted the Maryland flag that was waving from the head-quarters of the conspirators on Fayette Street.' On the same evening, Marshal Kane received an offer of troops from Bradley Johnson, of Frederick, who was afterward a brigadier in the Confederate Army. Kane telegraphed back, saying:-"Thank you for your offer. Bring your men by the first train, and we will arrange with the railroad afterward. Streets red with Maryland blood! Send expresses over the mountains and valleys of Maryland and Virginia for the riflemen to come without delay. Further hordes [meaning loyal volunteers] will be down upon us to-morrow. will fight them and whip them, or die." Early the next morning Johnson posted handbills in Frederick, calling upon the secessionists to rally to his standard. Many came, and with them he hastened to Baltimore," • April 20, and made his head-quarters in the house No. 34 Holliday Street, opposite Kane's office in the old City Hall.

1861.

Governor Hicks passed the night of the 19th at the house of Mayor Brown. At eleven o'clock the Mayor, with the concurrence of the Governor, sent a committee, consisting of Lenox Bond, George W. Dobbin, and John C. Brune, to President Lincoln, with a letter, in which he assured the chief magistrate that the people of Baltimore were "exasperated to the highest degree by the passage of troops," and that the citizens were "universally decided in the opinion that no more should be ordered to come." But for the exertions of the authorities, he said, a fearful slaughter would have occurred that day; and he conceived it to be his solemn duty, under the circumstances, to inform the President that it was "not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore, unless they fight their way at every step." He concluded by requesting the President not to order or permit any more troops to pass through the city. "If they should attempt it," he said, "the responsibility for the bloodshed will not rest upon me." Having performed this duty, the Governor and the Mayor went to bed. Their slumbers were soon broken by Marshal Kane and Ex-Governor Lowe, who came at midnight for authority to commit further outrages upon the

1 Baltimore Clipper, April 20, 1861. On that day Mr. Wales, the editor of the Clipper, spoke out boldly and ably in denunciation of the disloyal movements. Under the title of The Madness of the Hour, he said:"Secession is political madness. It is an attempt to save a house by setting it on fire, and trying to tear out what can be gathered from the devouring element. The frenzy of secessionists with us is an unanswerable evidence of it."

2 The following is a copy of Johnson's handbill:

"MARYLANDERS, AROUSE!

"FREDERICK, Saturday, 7 A. M.

"At twelve o'clock last night I received the following dispatch from Marshal Kane, of Baltimore, by telegraph to the Junction and expressed to Frederick. [Here follows Kane's dispatch given in the text.] All men who will go with me will report themselves as soon as possible, with such arms and accouterments as they Double-barreled shot-guns and buck-shot are efficient. They will assemble, after reporting themselves. at half-past ten o'clock, so as to go down in the half-past eleven train."

can.

DESTRUCTION OF BRIDGES AUTHORIZED.

417

Government and private property, which had been planned by the conspirators some days before, and "had been proclaimed in other parts of the State." Kane said that he had received information by telegraph that other troops were on their way to Baltimore by the railways from Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and proposed the immediate destruction of bridges on these roads, to prevent the passage of cars. The Mayor approved the plan, but said his jurisdiction was limited to the corporate boundaries of the city. The Governor had the power to order the destruction; and to his chamber the three (with a brother of the Mayor) repaired, Mr. Hicks being too ill to rise. They soon came out of that chamber with the Governor's acquiescence in their plans, they said; but which he afterward explicitly denied in a communication to the Maryland Senate, and later in an address to the people of Maryland. Their own testimony shows that his consent was reluctantly given, if given at all, in the words:-"I suppose it must be done;" and then only, according to common rumor and common belief, after arguments such as South Carolina vigilance committees generally used had been applied. With this alleged authority, Kane and Lowe, accompanied by Mayor Brown and his brother, hastened to the office of Charles Howard, the President of the Board of Police, who was waiting for them, when that officer and the Mayor issued orders for the destruction of the bridges.3 The work was soon accomplished. A gang of lawless men hastened out to the Canton bridge, two or three miles from the city, on the

a May 11, 1861.

Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railway, and destroyed it. As the train from the North approached the station, it was stopped by the interference of a pistol fired at the engineer. The passengers were at once turned out of the cars, and these were filled by the mob, who compelled the engineer to run his train back to the long bridges over the Gunpowder and Bush Creeks, arms of Chesapeake Bay. These bridges were fired, and large

1 See Address to the People of Maryland, May 11, 1861, by Governor Hicks.

2 The same.

3 Communication from the Mayor of Baltimore with the Mayor and Board of Police of Baltimore City: Document G, Maryland House of Delegates, May 10, 1861.

This is from a sketch of the bridge made by the author in November. 1861, from the Baltimore side of Gunpowder Creek. The picture of conflagration has been added to show the relative position of the portion of the bridge that was burnt at that time.

VOL. I-27

418

COMMUNICATION WITH THE CAPITAL CUT OFF.

portions of them were speedily consumed. Another party went up the Northern Central Railway to Cockeysville, about fifteen miles north of Baltimore, and destroyed the two wooden bridges there, and other smaller structures on the road. In the mean time the telegraph wires had been cut on all the lines leading out of Baltimore, excepting the one that kept the conspirators in communication with Richmond by the way of Harper's Ferry. Thus, all communication by railway or telegraph between the seat of government and the loyal States of the Union was absolutely cut off, or in the hands of the insurgents.1

The Committee sent to the President by Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown had an interview with him at an early hour on the morning of the 20th. The President and General Scott had already been in consultation on the subject of the passage of troops through Baltimore, and the latter had hastily said: "Bring them around the city." Acting upon this hint, the President assured the Committee that no more troops should be called through Baltimore, if they could pass around it without opposition or molestation. This assurance was telegraphed by the Committee to the Mayor, but it did not satisfy the conspirators. They had determined that no more troops from the North should pass through Maryland, and so they would be excluded from the Capital. Military preparations went actively on in Baltimore to carry out this determination, and every hour the isolation of the Capital from the loyal men of the country was becoming more and more complete.

The excitement in Washington was fearful; and at three o'clock on the morning of the 21st (Sunday) the President sent for Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown. The former was not in the city. The latter, with Messrs. Dobbin and Brune, and S. T. Wallis, hastened to Washington, where they arrived at ten o'clock in the morning. At that interview General Scott pro

1 For a few days succeeding the riot, no person was allowed to leave Baltimore for the North without a pass from the President of the Board of Police. approved by the Mayor:* and these permissions were sparingly issued. Neither were the mails allowed to go North, for it was desirable to keep the people of the Free-labor States ignorant of affairs at Washington until the seizure of the Capital, by the insurgents, should be accomplished.

The first mail-bag that passed through Baltimore after the riot there, was carried by James D. Gay, a member of the Ringgold Artillery from Reading, already mentioned. He left Washington for home on the evening of the 19th of April, with a carpet-bag full of letters from members of his company to their friends. He was in Baltimore during the fearfu! night of the 19th, when the railway bridges were burned: and. after escaping many personal perils, he managed to reach Cockeysville, in a carriage with some others. on the 20th, where, north of the burnt bridges, he took the cars for home on the Northern Central Railway. He reached York that night, and Reading the next day, where the contents of his bag were soon distributed. These letters, some of which were addressed to editors and were published, gave the first authentic intelligence to the loyal people of the state of affairs at the Capital, and in a degree quieted the apprehensions for its safety. That private mail-bag, which, for the time, took the place of the United States mail, was afterwards placed among the curiosities of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

The following is a copy of one of the passes, now before me

"OFFICE OF BOARD OF POLICE.
BALTIMORE, April 22, 1861.

"Messrs. Edward Childe and P. H. Birkhead being about to proceed to the North upon their private business, and having Mrs. Steinbrenner under their charge, we desire that they be allowed by all persons to pass without molestation by the way of Port Deposit, or York, Pennsylvania, or otherwise, as they may see fit.

"By order of the Board:

"The Mayor of the City concurs in the above.
"By his private Secretary,
"Mr. F. Meredith Dryden will accompany the party.

CHARLES HOWARD, Pres's

GEORGE HUNT BROWN.
ROBERT D. BROWN.

"CHARLES HOWARD, President Board of Police."

DEGRADING PROPOSITIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT.

419

posed to bring troops by water to Annapolis, and march them from there, across Maryland, to the Capital, a distance of about forty miles. The Mayor and his friends were not satisfied. The soil of Maryland must not be polluted anywhere with the tread of Northern troops; in other words, they must be kept from the seat of government, that the traitors might more easily seize it. They urged upon the President, "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.""

When the Mayor and his friends reached the cars to return, they were met by an electrograph from Mr. Garrett, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, informing them that a large number of troops were at Cockeysville, on their way to Baltimore. They immediately returned to the President, who summoned General Scott and some of the members of the Cabinet to a conference. The President was anxious to preserve the peace, and show that he had acted in good faith in calling the Mayor to Washington; and he expressed a strong desire that the troops at Cockeysville should be sent back to York or Harrisburg. "General Scott," said the Mayor in his report, "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 accompanied the Mayor to Baltimore.

Even this humiliation of the Government did not appease the conspirators and their friends, and they so far worked viciously upon the courage and firmness of Governor Hicks, that he was induced to send a message to the President on the 22d, advising him not to order any more troops to pass through Maryland, and to send elsewhere some which had already arrived at Annapolis. He urged him to offer a truce to the insurgents to prevent further bloodshedding, and said: "I respectfully suggest that Lord Lyons [the British Minister] be requested to act as mediator between the contending parties of our country." To these degrading propositions Secretary Seward replied, in behalf of the President, in which he expressed the deepest regret because of the public disturbances, and assured the Governor that the troops sought to be brought through Maryland were "intended for nothing but the defense of the Capital." He reminded his Excellency that the route chosen by the General-in-chief for the march of troops absolutely needed at the Capital, was farthest removed from the populous cities of the State; and then he administered the following mildly drawn but stinging rebuke to the chief magistrate of a State professing to hold allegiance to the Union, who had so far forgotten his duty and the dignity of his Commonwealth as to make such suggestions as Governor Hicks had done. "The President cannot but remember," he said, "that there has been a time in the history of our country [1814] when a General [Winder] of the American Union, with forces designed for the defense of its Capital, was not unwelcome anywhere in the State of Maryland, and certainly not at Annapolis, then, as now, the capital of that patriotic State, and then, also, one of the capitals of the Union. If eighty years could have obliterated all the other noble sentiments of that age in Maryland, the President would be hopeful, nevertheless, that there is

Mayor Brown's report of the interview.

420

THE PRESIDENT, AND BALTIMORE EMBASSIES.

one that would ever remain there as everywhere. That sentiment is, that no domestic contention whatever, that may arise among the parties of this Republic, ought in any case to be referred to any foreign arbitrament, least of all to the arbitrament of a European monarchy."

Still another embassy, in the interest of the secessionists of Baltimore, waited upon the President. These were delegates from five of the Young Men's Christian Associations of that city, with the Rev. Dr. Fuller, of the Baptist Church, at their head. The President received them cordially, and treated them kindly. He met their propositions and their sophisms with Socratic reasoning. When Dr. Fuller assured him that he could produce peace if he would let the country know that he was "disposed to recognize the independence of the Southern States-recognize the fact that they have formed a government of their own; and that they will never again be united with the North," the President asked, significantly, "And what is to become of the revenue?" When the Doctor expressed a hope that no more troops would be allowed to cross Maryland, and spoke of the patriotic action of its inhabitants in the past, the President simply replied, substantially, "I must have troops for the defense of the Capital. The Carolinians are now marching across Virginia to seize the Capital and hang me. What am I to do? I must have troops, I say; and as they can neither crawl under Maryland, nor fly over it, they must come across it." With these answers the delegation returned to Baltimore. The Government virtually declared that it should take proper measures for the preservation of the Republic without asking the consent of the authorities or inhabitants of any State; and the loyal people said Amen! Neither Governor Hicks, nor the Mayor of Baltimore, nor the clergy nor laity of the churches there, ever afterward troubled the President with advice so evidently emanating from the implacable enemies of the Union.

The National Capital and the National Government were in great peril, as we have observed, at this critical juncture. The regular Army, weak in numbers before the insurrection, was now utterly inadequate to perform its duties as the right arm of the nation's power. Twiggs's treason in Texas had greatly diminished its available force, and large numbers of its officers, especially of those born in Slave-labor States, were resigning their commissions, abandoning their flag, and joining the enemies of their country.

Among those who resigned at this time was Colonel Robert Edmund Lee, of Virginia, an accomplished engineer officer, and one of the most trusted and beloved by the venerable General-in-chief. His patriotism had become weakened by the heresy of State Supremacy, and he seems to have been easily

1 Letter of Secretary Seward to Governor Hicks, April 22, 1861.

2 Notwithstanding a greater number of those who abandoned their flag and joined the insurgents at that time were from the Slave-labor States, a large number of officers from those States remained faithful. From a carefully prepared statement made by Edward C. Marshall, author of The History of the Naval Academy, it appears that in 1860, just before the breaking out of the war, there were seven hundred and forty-seven graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, to which might be added seventy-three who graduated in June, 1861, making a total of eight hundred and twenty. These were all officers. At the close of 1861, the number of graduates who had resigned or had been dismissed within the year was only one hundred and ninetyseven, leaving six hundred and seventeen graduates who remained loyal. The number of graduates from the Slave-labor States was three hundred and eleven, of whom one hundred and thirty-three remained loyal. The remainder were disloyal. To these add nineteen who were born in Free-labor States, and we have the total of only one hundred and ninety-seven, of the eight hundred and twenty graduates, who were unfaithful.