MILITARY AND CIVIL AUTHORITY IN CONFLICT. 553 laws, were in full force, excepting so far as the latter affected the Commissioners and the Chief of Police; and he authorized Kenly, in the event of a refusal of any of the police force to perform their duty, to select, in conjunction with such of the public authorities as would aid him, "good men and true," to fill their places. Kenly worked with energy. He chose to select new men for a police force. Before midnight, he had enrolled, organized, and armed such a force, two hundred and fifty strong, composed of Union citizens whom he could trust, and had taken possession of the head-quarters of the late Marshal and Police Commissioners, in the Old City Hall, on Holliday Street. In that building he found ample evidence of the guiltiness of the late occupants. Concealed beneath the floors, in several rooms, were found a large number of arms, consisting of muskets, rifles, shot-guns, carbines, pistols, swords, and dirk knives, with ample ammunition of various kinds; also, in the covered yard or woodroom in the rear, in a position to command Watch-house Alley, leading to Saratoga Street, were two 6-pound and two 4-pound iron cannon, with suitable cartridges and balls. In that building was also found the cannon-ball sent from Charleston to Marshal Kane, delineated on page 322. These discoveries, and others of like character in other parts of the city, together OLD CITY HALL, BALTIMORE.1 JOHN R. KENLY. with the rebellious conduct of the Board of Police, who continued their sittings daily, refused to acknowledge the new policemen, and held the old force subject to their orders, seemed to warrant the Government in ordering their arrest. They were accordingly taken into custody, and were confined in Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor, as prisoners of State. These vigorous measures secured the ascendency of the Unionists in Maryland, which they never afterward lost. It was thenceforward entitled to the honor of being a a 1861. loyal State, and Baltimore a loyal city. The secessionists were silenced; and, at the suggestion of many Unionists of Baltimore, July 10, George R. Dodge, a citizen and a civilian, was appointed" marshal of police in place of Colonel Kenly, who, with his regiment, soon after 1 This is a view of the building as it appeared when the writer sketched it, in the autumn of 1864, from Holliday Street, near Saratoga Street. Adjoining it is seen the yard of the German Reformed Church, and in the distance the spire of Christ Church. The City Hall was built of brick, and stuccoed. 554 DISLOYAL MARYLANDERS IN RICHMOND. ward joined the Army of the Potomac. When the necessity for their pres ence no longer existed, Banks withdrew his troops from the city, where they had been posted at the various public buildings and other places; and, late in July, he superseded General Patterson in command on the Upper Potomac, and his place in Baltimore was filled by General John A. Dix. A few days later, Federal. Hill was occupied, as we have observed, by the Fifth New York regiment (Zouaves), under Colonel Duryée (who was appointed a brigadier on the 31st of August), and by their hands the strong works known as Fort Federal Hill were constructed. a June 8, 1861. The turn of affairs in Maryland was disheartening to the conspirators. They had counted largely upon the active co-operation of its citizens in the important military movements about to be made, when Johnston should force his way across the Potomac, and with their aid strike a deadly blow for the possession of the National Capital in its rear. These expectations had been strongly supported by refugees from their State who had made their way to Richmond, and these, forming themselves into a corps called The Maryland Guard, had shown their faith by offering their services to the Confederacy. These enthusiastic young men, blinded by their own zeal, assured the conspirators that the sympathies of a greater portion of the people of their State were with them. This was confirmed by the arrival of a costly "Confederate" banner for the corps, wrought by women of Baltimore, and sent clandestinely to them by a sister secessionist. This was publicly presented to the Guard on Capitol Square, in front of the monument there erected in honor of Washington and the founders of Virginia: Ex-Senator Mason made a speech on the occasion, in which the hopes of the conspirators concerning Maryland were set forth. "Your own honored State," he said, "is with us heart and soul in this great controversy. ... We all know that the same spirit which brought you here actuates thousands who remain at home." He complimented Chief Justice Taney for his sympathies with the conspirators, as one (referring to his action in the case of Merryman) who had "stood bravely in the breach, and interposed the unspotted arm of Justice between the rights of the South and the malig nant usurpation of power by the North." In conclusion, after hinting at a contemplated Confederate invasion of Maryland, in which the troops before him were expected to join," he told them they were to take the flag back to Baltimore. "It came here," he said, "in the hands of the fair. lady who stands by my side, who brought it through the camps of the enemy with a 1 The Richmond Despatch of June 10 thus announced the event:- Mrs. Augustus McLaughlin, the wife of one of the officers of the late United States Navy, who brought the flag from Baltimore, concealed as only a lady knows how, was present, and received the compliments of a large number of ladies and gentlemen who surrounded her upon the steps of the monument."-Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Diary, page 96. On the banner were the following words :-"The Ladies of Baltimore present this flag of the Confederate States of America to the soldiers comprising the Maryland Regiment now serving in Virginia, as a slight testimonial of the esteem in which their valor, their love of right, and determination to uphold true constitutional liberty are approved, applauded, and appreciated by the wives and daughters of the Monumental City." 2 See page 451. 3 A correspondent of the Charleston Mercury, writing at Richmond, on the 4th of July, said:-"Every thing depends upon the success and movements of General Johnston: If he has orders from President Davis to march into Maryland, and towards Baltimore, the game commences at once. Lincoln will find himself encompassed by forces in front and rear. Cut off from the North and West, Washington will be destroyed, and the footsteps of the retreating army, though tracked in blood across the soil of Maryland-as they assuredly will be, in such an event-may possibly pave the way to an honorable peace."-Duyckinck's War for the Union, i. 249. PIRATES ON THE CHESAPEAKE, 555 woman's fortitude and courage and devotion to our cause; and you are to take it back to Baltimore, unfurl it in your streets, and challenge the applause of your citizens." For more than three years the conspirators were deceived by the belief that Maryland was their ally in heart, but was made powerless by 'military despotism; and her refugee sons were continually calling with faith, in the spirit of Randall's popular lyric :— "Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain, Maryland! Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland! She meets her sisters on the plain; Arise in majesty again, Maryland! my Maryland!" 1 The delusion was dispelled when, in the summer of 1863, Lee invaded Maryland, with the expectation of receiving large accessions to his army in that State, but lost by desertion far more than he gained by recruiting. a June 28, 1861. At about this time, a piratical expedition was undertaken on Chesapeake Bay, and successfully carried out by some Marylanders. On the day after the arrest of Kane," the steamer St. Nicholas, Captain Kirwan, that plied between Baltimore and Point Lookout, at the mouth of the Potomac River, left the former place with forty or fifty passengers, including about twenty men who passed for mechanics. There were also a few women, and among them was one who professed to be a French lady. When the steamer was near Point Lookout, the next morning, this "French lady," suddenly transformed to a stout young man, in the person of a son of a citizen of St. Mary's County, Maryland, named Thomas, and surrounded by the band of pretended mechanics, all well armed, demanded of Captain Kirwan the immediate surrender of his vessel. Kirwan had no means for successful resistance, and yielded. The boat was taken to the Virginia side of the river, and the passengers were landed at Cone Point, while the captain and crew were retained as prisoners. There one hundred and fifty armed accomplices of the pirates, pursuant to an arrangement, went on board the St. Nicholas, which was destined for the Confederate naval service. She then went cruising down the Chesapeake to the mouth of the Rappahannock River, where she captured three brigs laden respectively with coffee, ice, and coal. With her prizes, she went up the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg, where the pirates sold their plunder, divided the prizemoney, and were entertained at a public dinner by the delighted citizens of that town, then suffering from the blockade, when Thomas appeared in his costume of a "French lady," and produced great merriment. A few days after this outrage, officers Carmichael and Horton, of Kenly's Baltimore police force, were at Fair Haven, on the Chesapeake, with a cul 1 Written by James R. Randall, at Point Coupee, Louisiana, on the 26th of April, 1861. It contains nine stanzas, and was very popular throughout the "Confederacy." It was successfully parodied by a loyal writer, after Lee's invasion of Maryland. 2 This was Thomas Carmichael, who was afterward marshal of the police of Baltimore, and, with officer D. P. West, arrested a number of the members of the Maryland Legislature on a charge of disloyalty. 556 PIRATICAL OPERATIONS ON THE OCEAN. prit in charge. They took passage for home in the steamer Mary Washington, Captain Mason L. Weems. On board of her were Captain Kirwan and his fellow-prisoners, who had been released; also Thomas, the pirate, and some of his accomplices, who were preparing, no doubt, to repeat their bold and profitable achievement. Carmichael was informed of their presence, and directed Weems to land his passengers at Fort McHenry. When Thomas perceived the destination of the vessel he remonstrated; and, finally, drawing his revolver, and calling around him his armed associates, he threatened to throw the officers overboard and seize the vessel. He was overpowered by superior numbers, and word was sent to General Banks of the state of the case, who ordered an officer with a squad of men to arrest the pirates. Thomas could not be found. At length he was discovered in a large bureau drawer, in the ladies' cabin. He was drawn out, and, with his accomplices, was lodged in Fort McHenry. Piratical operations on a more extended scale and wider field, under the sanction of commissions from the conspirators at Montgomery, were now frightening American commerce from the ocean. We have already mentioned the issuing of these commissions by Jefferson Davis,' the efforts of the conspirators to establish a navy, and the fitting out of vessels for the purpose, which had been stolen from the National Government, or purchased. Among the latter, as we have observed, was the Lady Davis, the first regularly commissioned vessel in the Confederate Navy. When the National Congress met in extraordinary session, on the 4th of July, more than twenty of these ocean depredators were afloat and in active service; and at the close of that month, they had captured vessels and property valued at several millions of dollars. Their operations had commenced early in May, and at the beginning of June no less than twenty vessels had been captured and sent as prizes into the port of New Orleans alone. The most notable of the Confederate pirate vessels, at that early period of the war, were the Savannah, Captain T. H. Baker, of Charleston, and the Petrel, Captain William Perry, of South Carolina; one of which was captured by an armed Government vessel, and the other was destroyed by one. The Savannah was a little schooner which had formerly done duty as 1 See page 872. The terms pirate and piratical are here used considerately, when speaking of the socalled privateering under commissions issued by Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs (See note 4, page 87). The lexicographer defines a pirate to be “A robber on the high seas;" and piracy, "The act, practice, or crime of robbing on the high seas: the taking of property from others by open violence, and without authority, on the sea." The acts of men commissioned by Davis and Toombs were in exact accordance with these conditions. These leading conspirators represented no actual government on the face of the earth. The Confederacy of disloyal men like themselves, formed for the purpose of destroying their Government, had been established, as we have observed, without the consent of the people over whom they had assumed control, and whose rights they had trampled under foot. They had no more authority to issue commissions of any kind, than Jack Cade, Daniel Shays, Nat. Turner, or John Brown. Hence, those who committed depredations on the high seas under their commissions, did so "without authority." And privateering, authorized by a regular government, is nothing less than legalized piracy, which several of the leading powers of Europe have abolished, by an agreement made at Paris in 1856. To that agreement the United States Government refused its assent, because the other powers would not go further, and declare that all private property should be exempt from seizure at sea, not only by private armed vessels, but by National ships of war. The governments of France and Russia were in favor of this proposition, but that of Great Britain, a powerful maritime nation, refused its assent. It also refused its assent to a modification of the laws of blockade, saying, "The system of commercial blockade is essential to our naval supremacy." 2 A full account of the operations of the Confederate Navy, domestic and foreign, will be given in another part of this work, CAPTURE OF THE SAVANNAH. a June 8, 1861. 557 pilot-boat No. 7, off Charleston harbor. She was only fifty-four tons burden, carried one 18-pounder amidships, and was manned by only twenty men. At the close of May she sallied out from Charleston, and, on the 1st of June, captured the merchant brig Joseph, of Maine, laden with sugar, from Cuba,. which was sent into Georgetown, South Carolina, and the Savannah proceeded in search of other prizes. Three days afterward, she fell in with the National brig Perry, which she mistook for a merchant vessel, and approached to make her a prize. When the mistake was discovered, the Savannah turned and tried to escape. The Perry gave hot pursuit, and a sharp fight ensued, which was of short duration. The Savannah surrendered; and her crew, with the papers of the vessel, were transferred to the war-ship Minnesota, the flag-ship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and the prize was sent to New York in charge of Master's Mate McCook. She was the first vessel bearing the Confederate flag that was captured, and the event produced much gratification among the loyal people. THE SAVANNAHL. & October, 1861. July 8. The captain and crew of the Savannah were imprisoned as pirates, and were afterward tried as such, in New York, under the proclamation of the President of the 19th of April.' In the mean time, Jefferson Davis had addressed a letter to the President, in which he threatened to deal with prisoners in his hands precisely as the commander and crew of the Savannah should be dealt with. He prepared to carry out that threat by holding Colonel Michael Corcoran, of the Sixty-ninth New York (Irish) Regiment, who was captured near Bull's Run, and others, as hostages, to suffer death if that penalty should be inflicted on the prisoners of the Savannah. Meanwhile the subject had been much discussed at home,' and commanded attention abroad, especially 1 See page $72. 2 Corcoran was treated with great harshness He was handcuffed and placed in a solitary cell, with a chain attached to the floor, until the mental excitement produced by this ignominions treatment, combining with a susceptible constitution, and the infectious nature of the locality (Libby Prison), brought on an attack of typhoid fever. See Judge Daley's public letter to Senator Harris, December 21, 1861. On the 21st of December, Charles P. Daley, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the city of New York, addressed a letter to Ira Harris, of the United States Senate, in discussion of the question, "Are Southern Privateersmen Pirates?" in which he took the ground, first, that they were on the same level, in the grade of guilt, with every Southern soldier, and that if one must suffer death for piracy, the others must suffer the same for treason; and, secondly, by having so far acceded to the Confederates the rights of belligerents as to exchange prisoners, the Government could not consistently make a distinction between prisoners taken on land and those taken on the sea. He strongly recommended, as a measure of expediency, that the President should treat the "privateersmen," who had been convicted, and were awaiting sentence, as prisoners of war. He also pleaded in extenuation of the rebellious acts of the people of the South, that, through their want of information concerning the people of the North, they had been hurried into their present position by the professional politicians and large landed proprietors, to whom they had hitherto been accustomed to confide the management of their public affairs." |