During the three days I spent in Washington, the city was virtually blockaded, receiving neither mails, telegrams, nor re-enforcements. Martial law, though not declared, was sadly needed. Most of the Secessionists had left, but enough remained to serve as spies for the Virginia Revolutionists.
I left for New York, by an evening train crowded with fleeing families. Most of them went west from the Relay House, deterred from passing through Baltimore by the reign of terror which the Rebels had inaugurated. The most zealous Union papers advocated Secession as their only means of personal and pecuniary safety. The State and city authorities, though professedly loyal, bowed helpless before the storm. Governor Sprague, with his Rhode Island volunteers, had started for Washington. Mayor Brown telegraphed him, requesting that they should not come through Baltimore, as it would exasperate the people.
"The Rhode Island regiment," was Sprague's epigrammatic response, "came out to fight, and may just as well fight in Maryland as in Virginia." It passed unmolested!
Baltimore under Rebel Rule.
We found Baltimore in a frenzy. The whole city seemed under arms. The Union men were utterly silenced, and many had fled. The only person I heard express undisguised loyalty was a young lady from Boston, and only her sex protected her. Several persons had been arrested as spies during the day, including two supposed correspondents of New York papers.
Baltimore, for the time, was worse than any thing I had seen in Charleston, New Orleans, or Mobile. Through the evening Barnum's hotel was filled with soldiers. Stepping into the office to make arrangements for going to Philadelphia, I encountered an old acquaintance from Cincinnati, now commanding a Baltimore company under arms:
"If Lincoln persists in attempting to send troops through Maryland," said he, "we are bound to have his head!"
Another Baltimorean came up and began to question me, but my acquaintance promptly vouched for me as "a true southern man," and I escaped annoyance. The same belief was expressed here which prevailed throughout the whole South, that northern men were cowards; and persons actually alluded to the attack upon the unarmed Massachusetts troops as an act of bravery.
Leaving Baltimore, I took a carriage for the nearest northern railway point. The roads were crowded with families leaving the city, and infested by Rebel scouts and patrols. Union citizens were helpless. One of them said to us: