BALTIMORE AND THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL, 1861.
A STUDY OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION. — THE FIRST BLOOD SHED IN THE WAR. — THE SUPPOSED PLOT TO ASSASSINATE THE INCOMING PRESIDENT. — THE MIDNIGHT RIDE TO WASHINGTON.
I have often been solicited by persons of widely opposite political opinions to write an account of the events which occurred in Baltimore on the 19th of April, 1861, about which much that is exaggerated and sensational has been circulated; but, for different reasons, I have delayed complying with the request until this time.
These events were not isolated facts, but were the natural result of causes which had roots deep in the past, and they were followed by serious and important consequences. The narrative, to be complete, must give some account of both cause and consequence, and to do this briefly and with a proper regard to historical proportion is no easy task.
Moreover, it is not pleasant to disturb the ashes of a great conflagration, which, although they have grown cold on the surface, cover embers still capable of emitting both smoke and heat; and especially is it not pleasant when the disturber of the ashes was himself an actor in the scenes which he is asked to describe.
But more than twenty-five years have passed, and with them have passed away most of the generation then living; and, as one of the rapidly diminishing survivors, I am admonished by the lengthening shadows that anything I may have to say should be said speedily. The nation has learned many lessons of wisdom from its civil war, and not the least among them is that every truthful contribution to its annals or to its teachings is not without some value.
I have accordingly undertaken the task, but not without reluctance, because it necessarily revives recollections of the most trying and painful experiences of my life—experiences which for a long time I have not unwillingly permitted to fade in the dim distance.
There was another 19th of April—that of Lexington in 1775—which has become memorable in history for a battle between the Minute Men of Massachusetts and a column of British troops, in which the first blood was shed in the war of the Revolution. It was the heroic beginning of that contest.
The fight which occurred in the streets of Baltimore on the 19th of April, 1861, between the 6th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers and a mob of citizens, was also memorable, 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.[1] In each case the outbreak was an explosion of conflicting forces long suppressed, but certain, sooner or later, to occur. Here the coincidence ends. The Minute Men of Massachusetts were so called because they were prepared to rise on a minute's notice. They had anticipated and had prepared for the strife. The attack by the mob in Baltimore was a sudden uprising of popular fury. The events themselves were magnified as the tidings flashed over the whole country, and the consequences were immediate. The North became wild with astonishment and rage, and the South rose to fever-heat from the conviction that Maryland was about to fall into line as the advance guard of the Southern Confederacy.