Maryland State Archives

Persistent link to this record (Permalink): http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=2888814&site=ehost-live

Cut and Paste: Under the despot's heel.

Database: MasterFILE PremierDespite being a prominent city in a loyal state, Baltimore found itself in a ticklish situation at the beginning of the Civil War. Linked by trade to the North, it was connected by heritage to the South. Nervous Federal officials soon instituted a military occupation of their own territory, and Baltimore was a free city no longer.

On the eve of the Civil War, Baltimore was the third largest city in the United States. An industrial town, it was a world-class port and shipbuilding center, with a busy harbor serving an endless parade of sailing and steam vessels. Baltimore was also a hub of rail and road transportation. Its railroads connected the town with the markets, factories, mining areas and farmlands of the northeastern seaboard and the Ohio Valley, as well as the nation's capital. The roads radiating from Baltimore included the extension of the National Road through the gaps of the Alleghenies. Although its growing industries and commerce made it economically dependent on the states that would remain in the Union, Baltimore was by heritage a Southern city. Slavery in Maryland was in decline--there were some 83,000 free blacks in the state and 87,000 slaves--but it was still legal. Maryland's status as a slave state thus reflected a definite Southern leaning among many of its inhabitants.

Located about 40 miles south of the Mason-Dixon line and about the same distance north of Washington, D.C., Baltimore naturally assumed an important position in national politics-three of the four candidates for the presidential election of 1860 were nominated by their respective party conventions in Baltimore. The city's population of more than 200,000 included large numbers of Germans and Irish who arrived in the immigrant surge of the 1850s. Baltimore's free black community was the largest in the country, with 50,000 members, while 2,200 blacks were still enslaved. The geographic location, commercial significance and divided sympathies of Marylanders combined to make the city vitally important to both sides at the beginning of the war.

Four railroad companies served Baltimore. The Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore (PW&B) connected the town with the markets and cities to the north via Philadelphia. The Northern Central Railroad carried trains north to Harrisburg, Pa. The Western Maryland ran west as far as Westminster, connecting the rich central Maryland farmland with Baltimore. The Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) ran west through Harpers Ferry, Va., to the Ohio River at Wheeling. The B&O also operated a branch line south to Washington, which was the only rail link to the nation's capital in 1861. Because a city ordinance prohibited railroads from operating locomotives through town, passenger and freight cars were transferred between the various depots by pulling the cars along connecting rails with teams of horses. This arrangement of rail terminals contributed to the violent events of April 1861.

Fort McHenry, built in 1797 to protect the port of Baltimore from naval attack, earned fame during the War of 1812 when it repulsed a British attack on the night of September 13-14, 1814, thus inspiring Francis Scott Key to write. "The Star Spangled Banner." In 1861 the fort was the most visible symbol of the federal government's presence and military might in Baltimore.

With Southern states seceding and seizing federal property, it was widely feared that Fort McHenry might soon be threatened. Thirty Marines under the command of 1st Lt. Andrew J. Hays were sent from the Washington Navy Yard on January 9, 1861, to reinforce the Army's caretaking detachment under Ordnance Sergeant Thomas Dailey. On January 15, Army Captain Joseph Haskins arrived to assume command of the fort, along with Company I of the 1st U.S. Artillery, the new garrison unit. Other units and commanders passed through Fort McHenry until February 26, when Captain John C. Robinson arrived to take command, along with his Company B, 5th U.S. Infantry. Following the surrender of Fort Sumter, S.C., on April 14, Fort McHenry was one of only four major fortifications left in federal hands. On April 18, two companies of reinforcements from the 2nd and 4th U.S. Artillery arrive. On that day, responsibility for the fort was assumed by Company I, 2nd U.S. Artillery, which remained the permanent garrison unit throughout the war.

The day after Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to end the rebellion and preserve the Union. Among the first to respond to the call was the 700-man-strong 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia Infantry Regiment. Under the command of Colonel Edward E Jones, the regiment left Boston for Washington on April 17. At Philadelphia, the men transferred to the PW&B on April 18 for the next leg of the trip south to Baltimore. On a second train following them were 10 companies of the 26th and 27th Pennsylvania regiments. Known as the Washington Brigade, they traveled unarmed and in civilian attire, unlike the 6th Massachusetts, whose members were fully uniformed and equipped.

Before leaving Philadelphia, Colonel Jones received word from the PW&B's president, Samuel M. Fenton, that four companies of Pennsylvania militia and two companies of Regular U.S. Artillery had been greeted by a hostile crowd in Baltimore when they arrived from Harrisburg earlier that day. Although subject to jeers and an occasional paving stone hurled their way, the Pennsylvanians proceeded to the B&O's Camden Station for their connection to Washington and the Regulars moved on to Fort McHenry otherwise unimpeded. Nevertheless, Fenton warned Jones that Southern sympathizers might violently oppose his regiment's passage through Baltimore.

As a precaution, Jones ordered ammunition distributed and muskets loaded. He traveled the length of the train, stopping in each car to repeat his instructions on how he expected the men to behave. He warned his soldiers to expect to be insulted and abused, perhaps even assaulted with stones, bricks or other missiles. He ordered them to pay no attention to the mob and to march with their eyes straight to the front. Should they be fired upon, he assured his men that their officers would order them to fire back. He cautioned them not to open a "promiscuous fire on the crowd," but to select those aiming at their fellow troops, and "drop them."

The train carrying the 6th Massachusetts arrived at President Street Station at about 10:30 a.m., followed later by the train with the Washington Brigade. The locomotive was uncoupled, and four-horse teams were attached to the rail cars carrying the 6th Regiment's first seven companies for the trip along Pratt Street to Camden Station. Large crowds had assembled, and along the way the cars were pelted with stones and bricks.

Police Marshal George Kane had positioned 50 police officers at Camden Station in hopes of controlling the crowd there. The mob grew angrier, and soon Pratt Street was barricaded at the Jones Falls bridge and the intersection with Gay Street. Carts of sand were dumped on the rails, and anchors were dragged from the wharves and placed across the tracks. Captain A.S. Follansbee ordered the last four companies to detrain, form ranks an toward Camden Street.

Amid howling crowds, thrown projectiles and shots fired into the air, the Union troops began to march. Trying to speed their journey, Follansbee ordered the men to march at the double quick. Some of the soldiers were struck down, while others had their weapons wrested from their hands. Thinking the soldiers were on the run and had no ammunition, some in the crowd became more emboldened. When they reached the Gay Street barricade and discovered it was impossible to get through the crowd, the troops halted, turned in formation, and fired a volley over the heads of the rioters into a brick wall. The flying debris injured a few in the crowd, and tempers rose. Adjacent gun stores were looted, and more of the rioters armed themselves. Paving stones were loosened, and all manner of stones, bricks and bottles were thrown at the soldiers. Somewhere along the route of march, shots were fired from the crowd, and soldiers began to fall from gunshot wounds. The troops began to return fire.

By then some soldiers and civilians had already been killed or wounded. Marshal Kane arrived, and his officers, with pistols drawn, attempted to escort the soldiers on their way. At the corner of Commerce and Pratt streets, another pistol shot rang out, and another soldier fell dead. The crowd was so thick, some soldiers could not even raise their muskets, but most were able to fire another volley, and more citizens were hit. As the soldiers crossed Light Street, they fired still another volley.

Mayor George Brown was waiting at Camden Station when he heard of the violence. He met the head of the column as it reached Charles Street and marched with the Massachusetts soldiers in a vain attempt to calm the crowd. The soldiers finally reached Camden Station after four of their number and 12 civilians had been killed and another 36 troops and an unknown number of civilians wounded. The men quickly boarded the train.

The soldiers' troubles were not completely over yet, however. Civil unrest continued in the area around the station. Some angry Southern sympathizers tried to block the tracks leading south in an attempt to prevent the train from leaving. The Baltimore police were finally able to push back the crowd and clear the tracks sufficiently to allow the train to depart at 12:30 p.m.

Fourteen railroad cars remained at President Street Station during the ordeal. These cars carried the approximately 1,000 men of the Washington Brigade from Pennsylvania and the band of the 6th Massachusetts. With the main body of the 6th on their way to Washington, the mob turned its attention to the stranded Union soldiers at President Street Station. As the cars were attacked, the panicky soldiers dismounted. A wild melee erupted in the streets among pro-Secessionist and pro-Unionist civilians, civilian-clothed Pennsylvanian soldiers, and uniformed Massachusetts bandsmen.

Kane arrived at last with his police force and finally succeeded in separating the crowds. The troops were ordered to reboard the trains for shipment back to Philadelphia. Six members of the brigade had been killed in the violence, and a number of others were left behind injured. Pro-Union citizens sheltered the injured and took some of the casualties to the Church Home and Hospital on Broadway.

The significance of the date, April 19, was not lost on either side. In the North, the event quickly became known as "the Lexington of 1861," referring to the engagement between British troops and Massachusetts militia 86 years earlier in the first battle of the Revolutionary War. Southerners also seized on the allusion, but likened it more to the British attack on Boston civilians in 1770, calling it the Baltimore Massacre. James R. Randall, a Baltimorean living in Louisiana, read about the ordeal and was inspired to write a poem that was set to music. "Maryland, My Maryland" became a rallying cry for pro-Southern Marylanders and a favorite song with the Confederate Army throughout the war.

The riot and the following 48 hours marked the height of pro-Southern sympathies in Maryland. Governor Thomas Hicks, although a Union sympathizer, asked the federal government to route its troops around Baltimore and called for all of the militia companies in the city to assemble, as armed citizens and militia poured into town from the surrounding counties. Telegraph and postal lines were cut. Barricades were erected at all the major thoroughfares into town to protect against invasion. At a midnight meeting on April 19, Mayor Brown and the Board of Police Commissioners decided to destroy all the railroad bridges leading north of the city to prevent more Union troops from passing through. Governor Hicks approved the plan, although he later denied any involvement.

On April 20, detachments of Baltimore police, pro-Southern militia units such as the Maryland Guard, Baltimore County Horse Guards and other volunteers burned the bridges of the Northern Central Railway near Cockeysville. Corporal Harry Gilmor of the Horse Guards was among them. As a lieutenant colonel commanding the 2nd Maryland Cavalry Battalion, Gilmor would re-turn on a raid in July of 1864 to burn area railroad bridges again. Another detachment of nonuniformed militia was placed under the command of Isaac Trimble and sent to burn the PW&B's bridges over the Gunpowder and Bush rivers.

On April 20, Police Commissioner John Davis went to Fort McHenry to warn Captain Robinson of a possible attack on the fort. Davis also offered to send 200 men from the Maryland Guard to intervene. Robinson told the commissioner that the Maryland Guard was not welcome on the post grounds and threatened to open fire on any group venturing past the Catholic Chapel on the Fort Road, one-quarter mile from the fort's gate.

Hicks and Brown sent a joint communication to Lincoln pleading with him to send no more troops through Maryland. For the next two weeks Baltimore was in a state of "armed neutrality." Had either Brown or Hicks been strongly in favor of secession, the state might have left the Union at that time, but it did not.

Following the Baltimore riot, when rail transportation through the city was halted, the first alternative was to bypass the city. Troops traveled to ports along the PW&B as far as Perryville, then boarded steamers for transport to Annapolis. Others traveled to other ports along the Atlantic coast or Chesapeake Bay, from which they were transported to Annapolis. Union Brig. Gen. Benjamin Butler arrived at Annapolis from Perryville aboard the PW&B's ferry Maryland with the 8th Massachusetts on April 21. The next day, the 7th New York Regiment arrived by steamer from Philadelphia, and both regiments came ashore and encamped on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy.

After Butler landed in Annapolis, the Army's general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, placed him in command of the newly created Department of Annapolis. The district encompassed the 20 miles on either side of the tracks of the Elk Ridge Railroad from Annapolis to Annapolis Junction, then south along the B&O's Washington Branch to Bladensburg. On May 3, Scott ordered Butler to seize the Relay House, arguably the most important railroad station in the United States in 1861, where the B&O's main line to Wheeling met the branch line to Washington.

Butler's mission was to stop and search trains heading to Harpers Ferry for recruits and materiel bound for the Confederate Army. He was also to act as a blocking force should the Confederates move by that line to attack Washington from the north. On May 5, Butler arrived at Relay House with the 8th New York and 6th Massachusetts regiments and one battery of the Boston Artillery. Two guns were planted on a hill overlooking the Thomas Viaduct railroad bridge. A camp was established, and patrols were sent out along the tracks in all directions. Eventually the bridge and junction were protected by a series of redoubts. The defenses around the Relay House included two 12-pounder mountain howitzers, three 10-pounder Parrott rifles, 20 12-pounder James rifles and two 8-inch siege mortars.

On May 11, Butler learned that Southern sympathizers were sending a secret weapon to the Confederates via roadway to avoid his searches. He moved to intercept the steam-powered artillery piece designed by Charles Dickenson and manufactured in Ross Winans' locomotive shop in Baltimore. It was reported to be heading west along the National Road toward Frederick, whence it would be transported to Harpers Ferry and sold to the Confederate government. Butler seized a westbound train and, after loading two cannons and a detachment of the 6th Massachusetts aboard, sent it on to Ellicott's Mills, seven miles west of the Relay House. The soldiers arrived at the same time the weapon did, and the Winans steam gun was quickly captured.

Baltimore was considered within Butler's Department of Annapolis. He had been receiving steady reports of Secessionist activity there, and he also knew that the Maryland Legislature was scheduled to meet in Frederick on May 17. The meeting had been changed to that location from Annapolis because of the strong Unionist sentiment in Frederick.

On May 13, Butler loaded artillery and infantry onto a train with a locomotive at each end. The train proceeded from the Relay House toward Frederick for about two miles. There, Butler stopped the train and sent half of the cars to Frederick so troops would be on hand when the legislature convened. The rest of the train he sent on to Baltimore.

At dusk in a gathering thunderstorm on May 13, the second train arrived at Camden Station. On board were 500 men of the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers, the same regiment that had been attacked there on April 19, the 8th New York Infantry and Cook's Battery of Boston Light Artillery with six field pieces. As lightning flashed, the force marched from Camden Station through deserted city streets to Federal Hill. The military occupation of Baltimore, which would last throughout the war, had begun.

Federal Hill, originally known as Observatory Hill, served as a signaling station to inform harbor pilots, ship chandlers and victualers that merchant ships were approaching. When Butler arrived, he placed his artillery and had his men begin fortifying the position. He then sent a message to the commander of Fort McHenry: "I have taken possession of Baltimore. My troops are on Federal Hill, which I can hold with the aid of my artillery. If I am attacked tonight, please open upon Monument Square with your mortars."

The next morning, Baltimoreans woke to find a fortified Union encampment flying the Stars and Stripes. Secessionists in the town saw it as another act of Northern invasion, while Unionists praised it as an act of deliverance. Butler immediately issued a proclamation that warned "traitorous men" to cease their rebellious acts. He further proclaimed that all goods intended to aid the rebellion would be seized and their transportation halted. He forbade assemblies of armed men and ordered all militia officers to report to him personally to affirm their loyalty. Pro-Southern militia companies were disbanded, and their arms and equipment were confiscated. Butler also declared that no "flag, banner, ensign or device of the so called Confederate States" could be displayed.

Butler enticed the Baltimore business community with hints of lucrative government contracts to reward the city for remaining loyal. During the next few days, the bridges were repaired, and rail transportation through Maryland was restored. On May 14, the Baltimore operations of the PW&B and Northern Central railroads resumed. Two days after Butler's arrival, on May 15, the general received an angry message from Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott expressing his dismay that Butler was occupying Baltimore without orders or authorization. The Army general-in-chief ordered him to make no more proclamations on behalf of the government.

In the weeks that followed, a fort covering the entire top of Federal Hill was constructed. It consisted of walls, barracks and cannon emplacements. By 1864 Fort Federal Hill's armament consisted of five 10-inch seacoast mortars, two 8-inch seacoast mortars, 23 32-pound Parrott rifles, five 24-pounders, six 6-pounders and six 8-inch Columbiads. Also known as Fort Number 15, the bastion was a key vantage point for controlling the city.

Next to Washington, Baltimore was perhaps the most heavily defended city in the Union, eventually surrounded by more than 40 forts, redoubts and batteries. The anchor of the Union defensive system was the venerable Fort McHenry. In April 1861, the fort's armament consisted of 50 artillery pieces ranging from 24- to 42-pounders. On May 26, two 10-inch Model 1844 Columbiads were added. By July, the total armament had reached 76 cannons and mortars. Of these, two 10-inch Columbiads and five 10-inch seacoast mortars were positioned to fire toward the city the fort had been designed to protect. The others faced the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay. Although the Confederates never had a force sufficient to launch an offensive from the bay, Fort McHenry stood ready to repulse a naval attack.

One of the many improvements the Army had undertaken to Baltimore's defenses after the War of 1812 was to extend the defenses farther east. As the increasingly larger-caliber naval weapons would allow a potential enemy to shell the harbor and town without passing Fort McHenry, it was decided to construct another fortification four miles farther down the Patapsco River near its mouth with Chesapeake Bay on the Sollers Point Shoals. Construction began in 1848 on Fort Carroll, named in honor of Charles Carroll, one of Maryland's signers of the Declaration of Independence. Among the officers who supervised its construction was Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee. In 1852 Lee was reassigned as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and replaced at Fort Carroll by Captain Henry Brewerton.

The fort was built on a man-made island, with a foundation 15 feet below the surface. Unlike the pentagonal Fort Sumter, Fort Carroll was hexagonal. Due to construction and funding problems, it was never entirely completed. The walls reached above the waterline and several buildings were constructed, but only five of the intended 225 gun platforms were installed. When war broke out, Brewerton and his engineers turned their energies to building earthworks at Fort Federal Hill and the ring of other fortifications around the city. Following the Baltimore riot, however, Captain Robinson sent a detachment of the 5th U.S. Infantry and some artillerymen with two fieldpieces to man Fort Carroll.

More than 20 Army camps were established in and around Baltimore, many on city park grounds, to provide new regiments with a place to gather and train. Veteran units were brought back to the camps to rest and to reconstitute as veteran volunteer regiments after the required percentage of their numbers had re-enlisted. After the Army began recruiting African Americans, four regiments of U.S. Colored Troops, a total of 8,700 men, were raised and trained in Baltimore.

Through the course of the war, the Army established seven military hospitals in and around the city, in addition to the post hospital at Fort McHenry. There were also several civilian hospitals used to treat military patients during the war. Many casualties of the Battles of Antietam and Gettysburg were brought to Baltimore after receiving initial treatment in field hospitals. Among the Gettysburg casualties were Confederate Maj. Gen. Isaac Trimble and Brig. Gen. James Kemper. Both were wounded in Pickett's Charge and were treated at Fort McHenry's post hospital. Brigadier General Lewis Armistead, who sustained a mortal wound in the same charge, was brought to Baltimore for burial. His grave in Saint Paul's Cemetery is next to that of his uncle, Major George Armistead, who commanded Fort McHenry during the 1814 bombardment.

Fort McHenry served as a prison during the Civil War as well, and three classes of prisoners were held there. The first category were those who belonged to the U.S. Army and were charged with offenses punishable by military law, such as desertion and bounty jumping. The second class were enemy prisoners of war who were subject to no punishment but were to be held in confinement until duly exchanged. Not big enough to permanently house prisoners of war, Fort McHenry served as a temporary holding facility for those waiting shipment to the bigger prisoner of war camps, such as Point Lookout, or for transfer to the Parole Camp near Annapolis to await exchange. By October 1862, following the Battle of Antietam, nearly 3,000 Confederate prisoners had passed through the fort. After the Battle of Gettysburg, more than 7,000 captured Rebels went through Fort McHenry.

The third class of prisoners were political prisoners-civilians charged with offenses that could be tried by court-martial or military commission. With the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and other civil rights by Lincoln on April 27, 1861, this class included citizens suspected of treason, blockade running, impeding the passage of Union troops, being Confederate sympathizers, and printing and publishing secessionist materials. From May 1861 until February 1862, such arrests were made under the authority of the State Department and led to the incarceration of 125 citizens, including Mayor Brown and Police Marshal Kane of Baltimore, 29 pro-secession state legislators and 17 newspaper owners and editors. Frank Key Howard, grandson of Francis Scott Key, was one of the imprisoned editors. After his release, he wrote about his experience in the book American Bastille, which was duly banned by the government. Arrest authority was later passed to the War Department. In all, a total of 2,094 political prisoners were detained.

Baltimore, a Union city in a loyal state, remained under military occupation throughout the war. Although no major battles were fought in or around the town, it remained notorious as the site of the shedding of the conflict's first blood. Scores of Union volunteer regiments trained in Baltimore camps. Local shipyards along its waterfront launched the gunboats USS Monocacy and Pinola and the monitor USS Waxsaw and also refitted the ferry Ethan Allen into a troop and supply transport for the U.S. Navy. Other shipbuilders contracted to produce pontoon bridges for the Army and to repair Navy vessels, while local ironworks provided machinery and armor plating for steam warships. But despite the city's vital role in the Union war effort, Baltimore remained slightly suspect in the eyes of the North, a suspicion later shown to be justified when a favorite son of the city, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln on Good Friday, April 14, 1865.

MAP: After rail lines through Baltimore were barricaded with cartloads of sand and anchors from the wharves, the Washington-bound troops of the 6th Massachusetts had to exit their train at President Street Station and double-quick down Pratt Street to board new trains at Camden Station.

PHOTO (COLOR): Taking note of the anniversary on which it occurred, Currier & Ives titled this depiction of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry's difficult march through Baltimore on April 19 The Lexington of 1861.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Top: An 1857 photo of the Relay House, a strategically vital station located at the Washington junction of the Baltimore & Ohio. The train on the left would turn west, toward Harpers Ferry, while the one on the right would proceed to Washington. Above: Federal troops wait to search westbound trains for Rebel recruits and supplies en route to Harpers Ferry.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Top: Thomas Holliday Hicks, Maryland's governor in 1861. Above: A portrait of Baltimore Mayor George Brown, by J.H. Lazarus. Right: Troops of Cook's Boston Light Infantry, backed by artillery, occupy Monument Square, in a sketch by Joseph Becker.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): The Winans steam gun, the "secret weapon" that Secessionists were suspected of attempting to spirit out of Baltimore to Harpers Ferry.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Top: Hiram Duryea's Zouaves construct new earthworks on Baltimore's Federal Hill. Above: A member of Company D, 3rd Rifles, Massachusetts Volunteers, sketched Fort McHenry with its two new Columbiad cannons--installed to protect Baltimore from some of its own residents.

~~~~~~~~

By Glenn F. Williams

First-time contributor Glenn F. Williams, a retired military officer, is exhibit curator and historian of USS Constellation in Baltimore. For further reading, see: Baltimore During the Civil War, by Scott Sumpter Sheads and Daniel Carroll Toomey; or A Southern Star for Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861, by Lawrence Denton.

Copyright of America's Civil War is the property of Weider History Group and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

The link information above provides a persistent link to the article you've requested.

Persistent link to this record: Following the link above will bring you to the start of the article or citation.

Cut and Paste: To place article links in an external web document, simply copy and paste the HTML above, starting with

If you have any problems or questions, contact Technical Support at http://support.epnet.com/contact/askus.php or call 800-758-5995.

This e-mail was generated by a user of EBSCOhost who gained access via the ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY account. Neither EBSCO nor ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY is responsible for the content of this e-mail.