In Brown's later assessment, it was the Baltimore riot that pushed the two sides over the edge into full-scale war, "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". On July 10, 1861, a
grand jury of the United States District Court indicted Samuel Mactier, Lewis Bitter, James McCartney, Philip Casmire, Michael Hooper and Richard H. Mitchell for their part in the riot. After the April 19 riot, some small skirmishes occurred throughout Baltimore between citizens and police for the next month, but a sense of normalcy returned as the city was cleaned up. Mayor
Brown and Maryland Governor
Hicks implored President Lincoln to send no further troops through Maryland to avoid further confrontations. However, as Lincoln remarked to a peace delegation from the
YMCA, Union soldiers were "neither birds to fly over Maryland, nor moles to burrow under it". On the evening of April 20 Hicks also authorized Brown to dispatch the Maryland state militia for the purpose of disabling the railroad bridges into the city—an act he would later deny. One of the militia leaders was
John Merryman, who was arrested one month later, and held in defiance of a writ of
habeas corpus, which led to the case of
Ex parte Merryman. The city's banks and wealthy individuals, such as
Johns Hopkins, John Clark, and Colonel Columbus O'Donnell, convened quickly after recognizing the severity of the situation. In a meeting, the wealthy Union members who were supporters of the Union appropriated a sum of $500,000 to be expended under the mayor's directions. Hopkins, born in 1795, was a Quaker, businessman, and staunch supporter of the Union. His belief in equality and social reform was deeply rooted in his Quaker upbringing and the experiences of the Civil War. During the Civil War, Hopkins was an ardent supporter of the Union by providing financial support to Union soldiers and their families. He tried to relieve suffering in Baltimore during this period. The committee raised funds-"placing the whole sum at the disposal"-to aid the efforts of the city in maintaining order and defence. This shows how civic leaders marshalled resources for the public good during the crisis. In his book
History of Maryland, Thomas Scharf records this as a good example of leadership and collaboration. He says that actions of these figures were supported by several local newspapers, including American Exchange, German Correspondent, and the Clipper. On April 19, Major General
Robert Patterson, commander of the Department of Washington (Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia), ordered Brigadier General
Benjamin Butler, with the 8th Massachusetts, to open and secure a route from
Annapolis through
Annapolis Junction to Washington. The 8th Massachusetts arrived by ship at Annapolis on April 20. Gov. Hicks and the Mayor of Annapolis protested, but Butler (a clever politician) bullied them into allowing troops to land at Annapolis, saying, "'I
must land, for my troops are hungry.'—'No one in Annapolis will sell them anything,' replied these authorities of the State and city." Butler intimated that armed men were not always limited to the necessity of
purchasing food when famished. The 8th Massachusetts, with the
7th New York Infantry Regiment, proceeded to
Annapolis Junction (halfway between Baltimore and Washington), and the 7th New York went on to Washington, where, on the afternoon of April 25, they became the first troops to reach the capital by this route. There were calls for Maryland to declare secession in the wake of the riot. Governor Hicks called a special session of the
state legislature to consider the situation. Since Annapolis, the capital, was occupied by Federal troops, and Baltimore was harboring many pro-Confederate mobs, Hicks directed the legislature to meet in
Frederick, in the predominantly Unionist western part of the state. The legislature met on April 26; on April 29, it voted 53–13 against secession, though it also voted not to reopen rail links with the North, and requested that Lincoln remove the growing numbers of federal troops in Maryland. At this time the legislature seems to have wanted to maintain Maryland's neutrality in the conflict. Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney, also a native of Maryland, ruled on June 4, 1861, in
ex parte Merryman that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional; but Lincoln ignored the ruling, and in September when Baltimore newspaper editor
Frank Key Howard, Francis Scott Key's grandson, criticized this in an editorial he too was imprisoned without trial. Federal troops imprisoned the young newspaper editor in
Fort McHenry, which, as he noted, was the same fort where the
Star Spangled Banner had been waving "o'er the land of the free" in his grandfather's song. Just before daybreak on June 27, soldiers marched from Fort McHenry on orders from Major General
Nathaniel P. Banks, who had succeeded Cadwalader as commander of the Department of Annapolis, and arrested Marshal
George P. Kane. Banks appointed Col.
John Reese Kenly of the
1st Maryland Infantry Regiment as provost marshal to superintend the Baltimore police; Kenly enrolled, organized, and armed 250
Unionists for a new police. When the old Board of Police would not recognize the new police, and tried to continue the old police, they were arrested and sent to
Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. On July 10, George R. Dodge, a civilian, was appointed as marshal of police. Major General
John Adams Dix succeeded Banks in command of the Department of Annapolis, and Colonel
Abram Duryée's
5th New York Volunteer Infantry, "Duryée's Zouaves", constructed Fort
Federal Hill, Baltimore. To better secure the city, a ring of additional fortifications were built in and around the city, most notably
Fort Worthington to the northeast (around present-day
Berea), and
Fort Marshall (in present-day
Highlandtown/
Canton). Some Southerners reacted with passion to the incident.
James Ryder Randall, a teacher in Louisiana but a native Marylander who had lost a friend in the riots, wrote "
Maryland, My Maryland" for the Southern cause in response to the riots. The poem was later set to "Lauriger Horatius" (the tune of
O Tannenbaum), a melody popular in the South, and referred to the riots with lines such as "Avenge the patriotic gore / That flecked the streets of Baltimore". It did not become Maryland's state song until 78 years later (1939). After many efforts to revoke this status, it was removed from being the state song in 2021. On September 17, 1861, the day the legislature reconvened to discuss these later events and Lincoln's possibly unconstitutional actions, twenty-seven state legislators (one-third of the
Maryland General Assembly) were arrested and jailed by federal troops, using Lincoln's suspension of
habeas corpus, and in further defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice's
ex parte Merryman ruling. ==See also==