April. On the 27th it issued an address disclaiming all idea, intention or authority to pass any ordinance of secession. It appointed Otho Scott, Robert M. McLane and William J. Ross commissioners to confer with the President of the United States and see what arrangements could be made to preserve the peace of the State. On May 6th these commissioners reported that they had had an interview with the President, and that he had assured them that the State of Maryland, so long as she did not array herself against the Federal government, would not be molested or interfered with, except so far as it was necessary for the preservation of the Union. But neither governor, general assembly nor commissioners to the President had the faintest conception of the real state of things in Maryland. She was devoted to the Union. She was hostile to secession. She abhorred the men who precipitated the Gulf States into revolution. She had no sympathy with slavery, for she had emancipated more than half her slaves and had established a negro State of Maryland in Africa, where she was training her emancipated servants to take control of their own destiny as free men, and this colony she supported by annual appropriations out of her public taxes. There was no involuntary servitude in Maryland, for as soon as a servant became discontented he or she just walked over the line into Pennsylvania, where they were safely harbored and concealed.
Therefore there was no sympathy in Maryland for the proceedings convulsing the Southern States. But the proclamation of the President, calling for 75,000 men ‘to redress wrongs already too long endured,’ changed the whole situation in the twinkling of an eye. It was no longer union or disunion, secession or State rights. It was a question of invasion and self-defense. The President had declared war on her sister State. Was Maryland to support that war, or was she to stand by with hands folded and see her friends and kindred beyond the Potomac put to the sword and the torch? War on a State was against the common right. The cause of each was the cause of all; and precisely as Maryland had responded in 1775 to the cry of Massachusetts for assistance, so now did the people of Maryland, over governor, over general assembly, over peace commissioners, respond to the call of Virginia. The peace commissioners reported on May 6th. On the 8th Captain Johnson, having secured from Mason an engagement that all troops that would go from Maryland should be promptly received into the army of the Confederate States, and from Colonel Jackson, in command at Harper's Ferry, permission to rendezvous on the Virginia side, opposite Point of Rocks, marched out of Frederick to that place, crossed the Potomac and reported to Capt. Turner Ashby, then posted there with his troops of horse. Ashby was to feed the Marylanders until further orders. This pioneer company showed the way, and in a few days detachments of companies began to straggle in—the debris of Trimble's fifteen thousand enrolled volunteers in Baltimore. Some marched with a semblance of order from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks. Some straggled in by twos and threes. Some came in squads on the railroad. But the State was aflame and a steady stream of gallant youth poured into the rendezvous at Point of Rocks and Harper's Ferry. By May 21st there were the skeletons of eight companies collected at Point of Rocks:
Co. A. Capt. Bradley T. Johnson.
Co. B. Capt. C. C. Edelin, at Harper's Ferry.
Co. C. Capt. Frank S. Price.
Co. D. Capt. James R. Herbert.
Co. E. Capt. Harry McCoy.
Co. F. Capt. Thomas G. Holbrook.
Co. G. Capt. Wilson Carey Nicholas.
Co. H. Capt. Harry Welmore.
They were mustered into the service of the Confederate States on May 21st and 22nd by Lieut.-Col. George Deas, inspector-general on the staff of Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, who in the meantime had superseded Colonel Jackson in command at Harper's Ferry. Captain Johnson, as senior captain, refused to recognize the Virginia authorities. Relying on the promise of Mr. Mason, he insisted that the Marylanders should be received into the army of the Confederate States, and not into the army of Virginia. On May 21, 1861, Virginia was not one of the Confederate States. He believed that Maryland ought to be represented in the army by men bearing arms and her flag. It was impossible for her to be represented in the political department of the government; therefore it was of vital importance that the flag of Maryland should always be upheld in the armies of the Confederate States. In these eight companies there were about five hundred men. They effected a temporary organization among themselves under their senior captain, and sent up through the regular channels to President Davis their application to have their battalion organized into the army of the Confederate States, with Charles S. Winder, late captain Ninth infantry, U. S. A., as colonel, and Bradley T. Johnson as lieutenant-colonel.
Chapter 3: Maryland's overthrow.
While the city of Baltimore was in a frenzy of excitement, on Sunday, the 21st of May, at the approach of the Pennsylvanians from Cockeyville, Brig.-Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, with a Massachusetts regiment, landed at Annapolis, whither he had proceeded by a steamer from Perryville on the Susquehanna. The next day, the 2 2nd, he was reinforced by the New York Eighth and pushed up the Annapolis & Elkridge railroad to its junction with the Washington branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. On May 5th he took possession of the Relay House, nine miles from Baltimore, where the main branch of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad leading to Harper's Ferry and the West unites with the Washington branch, which leads to Washington, thirty miles distant. His troops were the Eighth New York, the Sixth Massachusetts and Major Cook's battery of Boston light artillery. He promptly fortified the position with earthworks and artillery. All trains going west and south were searched, and scouts scoured the surrounding country. On the 8th of May communication between Washington and the North was further strengthened by a new route by water from Perryville to Locust Point, and thence by rail to Washington. On the night of May 13th General Butler, with the major part of his command, entered Baltimore, seized Federal Hill, which commands the city, fortified it with fifty heavy guns, and Baltimore was in his control. He acted with intelligence and promptness, and to him the Union side was greatly indebted for restoring communications between the capital city and the United States. The United States having control of the bay and the great rivers emptying into it—the Patapsco, the Patuxent and the Potomac, all parts of the State were dominated by Federal guns. The Northern frontier was open, with the Baltimore & Ohio railroad from Wheeling and the West, the Northern Central railroad from Harrisburg and the central North, and the Baltimore, Wilmington & Philadelphia railroad from New York and New England, and the North, West and East in arms to pour down over these great avenues of travel to subjugate Maryland and to protect the capital. It was too late for Maryland to act with the Confederacy. There never had been an hour when she could have struck a blow for independence. It was impossible to move before Virginia. Virginia did not move until May 24th, when Maryland was bound hand and foot to the Union by the overwhelming force of the army of occupation.
The general assembly of the State acted with the dignity and courage of a Roman senate. On the 10th of May, the State in the grip of the Federal army, the committee on Federal relations of the house of delegates, Severn Teakle Wallis, Esq., chairman, made a report that for exact statement, for force and for logic was excelled by no paper of that epoch. They said:
Whereas, in the judgment of the General Assembly of Maryland, the war now waged by the government of the United States upon the people of the Confederate States is unconstitutional in its origin, purposes and conduct; repugnant to civilization and sound policy; subversive of the free principles upon which the Federal Union was founded, and certain to result in the hopeless and bloody overthrow of our existing institutions; and,
Whereas, the people of Maryland, while recognizing the obligations of their State, as a member of the Union, to submit in good faith to the exercise of all the legal and constitutional powers of the general government, and to join as one man in fighting its authorized battles, do reverence, nevertheless, the great American principle of self-government, and sympathize deeply with their Southern brethren in their noble and manly
