Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman

1 "BALTIMORE IS TO BE THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION": The Baltimore Riot and the Formation of Lincoln’s Habeas Corpus Policy

10 1 “Baltimore is to be the Battlefield of the Southern Revolution” The Baltimore Riot and the Formation of Lincoln’s Habeas Corpus Policy W hen Abraham Lincoln received word on April 14, 1861, that Fort Sumter had fallen into Confederate hands, he set to work with his cabinet to formulate a policy that would sufficiently respond to the crisis. Seven Deep South states had already seceded from the Union. Now these socalled Confederate States had attacked the nation’s flag, affronted the national honor, and forcibly seized federal property. The president needed to respond decisively. On April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling forth seventy-five thousand militiamen from the states and summoning Congress to convene in special session on July 4, 1861.1 Lincoln’s proclamation was greeted with disillusionment and anger across the Upper South. His call for troops was evidence to Virginians that he really sought the “subjugation of all who would not subscribe to the creed of the conqueror.” On April 17, the Old Dominion State voted herself out of the Union. Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee soon followed. For Lincoln, the slaveholding border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky , and Missouri now needed to be held at all costs. Indeed, Lincoln believed that losing the border states would mean losing “the whole game.”2 If Maryland fell to the rebels, the national capital would be impossible to defend. Maryland, a border slave state, sat in a precarious position in the spring of 1861. Geographically, Maryland linked the North to the nation’s capital. Strategically, northern soldiers could not reach the District of Columbia except by train through Maryland. The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Bal- The Baltimore Riot and Lincoln’s Habeas Corpus Policy | 11 timore Railroad ran from Philadelphia to Baltimore, while the Northern Central Railway Company’s lines linked Harrisburg to Baltimore. From the west, the Baltimore and Ohio brought travelers to the Monumental City. Passengers on these trains could then head south to Washington on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Camden Station, near the harbor. Between November 1860 and April 1861, Maryland governor Thomas H. Hicks did all he could to keep his state in the Union. When secessionists urged him to call the state legislature into session, he refused, fearing that the legislators might vote the state out of the Union. Secessionists were furious with Hicks, while some Unionists praised him for his “masterly inactivity.” Still, Hicks was a timid and sometimes vacillating man who may have been in over his head. In response to Lincoln’s proclamation calling for troops, Hicks informed Secretary of War Simon Cameron that in light of Maryland’s divided sympathies and the strength of secessionists in the state, “I think it prudent to decline (for the present) acting upon the requisition made upon Maryland for four regiments.”3 But other states heeded Lincoln’s call. On April 18, 1861, five companies of Pennsylvania troops passed through Baltimore on their way to Washington, D.C. A crowd gathered around the soldiers as they marched through the city toward the railroad depot at Camden Station. The soldiers carried their muskets capped and half-cocked, giving the impression that they were loaded and ready to fire. As a consequence, the mob chose not to attack the troops while they were marching. Once the Pennsylvanians had boarded the train for Washington, however, “the angry mob hurled a shower of bricks, clubs, and stones” upon the soldiers. “In the midst of the confusion,” wrote nineteenth-century historian Samuel P. Bates, “an attempt was made to detach the engine from the train and run it away. This was only prevented by the determined character of the engineer and his assistants, who drew revolvers, and threatened to shoot any who dared to make the attempt. At length, amidst the demoniac yells of the crowd, the train moved off, carrying the volunteers safely beyond the reach of their desperate assailants.” Fortunately this attack resulted in only “slight injuries ” to the soldiers. Baltimore mayor George William Brown claimed that but for the “great efforts” of the city authorities “a fearful slaughter would have occurred.”4 Once the soldiers had departed, Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown 12 | Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War sent an urgent note to Lincoln: “A collision between the citizens & the Northern troops has taken place in Baltimore and the excitement is fearful . Send no more troops here. We...