This gentleman was afterward a Major-General in the Confederate Army, where he distinguished himself. He lost a leg at Gettysburg.
By this means not only was the inadequate number of the police supplemented, but many who would otherwise have been the disturbers of the peace became its defenders. And, indeed, not a few of the men enrolled, who thought and hoped that their enrollment meant war, were disappointed to find that the prevention of war was the object of the city authorities, and afterwards found their way into the Confederacy.
For some days it looked very much as if Baltimore had taken her stand decisively with the South; at all events, the outward expressions of Southern feeling were very emphatic, and the Union sentiment temporarily disappeared.
Early on the morning of Saturday, the 20th, a large Confederate flag floated from the headquarters of a States Rights club on Fayette street near Calvert, and on the afternoon of the same day the Minute Men, a Union club, whose headquarters were on Baltimore street, gave a most significant indication of the strength of the wave of feeling which swept over our people by hauling down the National colors and running up in their stead the State flag of Maryland, amid the cheers of the crowd.[12] Everywhere on the streets men and boys were wearing badges which displayed miniature Confederate flags, and were cheering the Southern cause. Military companies began to arrive from the counties. On Saturday, first came a company of seventy men from Frederick, under Captain Bradley T. Johnson, afterward General in the Southern Army, and next two cavalry companies from Baltimore County, and one from Anne Arundel County. These last, the Patapsco Dragoons, some thirty men, a sturdy-looking body of yeomanry, rode straight to the City Hall and drew up, expecting to be received with a speech of welcome from the mayor. I made them a very brief address, and informed them that dispatches received from Washington had postponed the necessity for their services, whereupon they started homeward amid cheers, their bugler striking up "Dixie," which was the first time I heard that tune. A few days after, they came into Baltimore again. On Sunday came in the Howard County Dragoons, and by steamboat that morning two companies from Talbot County, and soon it was reported that from Harford, Cecil, Carroll and Prince George's, companies were on their way. All the city companies of uniformed militia were, of course, under arms. Three batteries of light artillery were in the streets, among them the light field-pieces belonging to the military school at Catonsville, but these the reverend rector of the school, a strong Union man, had thoughtfully spiked.
The United States arsenal at Pikesville, at the time unoccupied, was taken possession of by some Baltimore County troops.
From the local columns of the American of the 22d, a paper which was strongly on the Union side, I take the following paragraph:
"WAR SPIRIT ON SATURDAY.
"The war spirit raged throughout the city and among all classes during Saturday with an ardor which seemed to gather fresh force each hour.... All were united in a determination to resist at every hazard the passage of troops through Baltimore.... Armed men were marching through the streets, and the military were moving about in every direction, and it is evident that Baltimore is to be the battlefield of the Southern revolution."
And from the American of Tuesday, 23d:
"At the works of the Messrs. Winans their entire force is engaged in the making of pikes, and in casting balls of every description for cannon, the steam gun,[13] rifles, muskets, etc., which they are turning out very rapidly."