Holladay Hicks, had advised that the State should occupy for the present a position of "neutrality;" and while he amused the country with this absurd piece of demagogueism, and very plainly suggested that in the approaching election of congressinen, the people of Maryland might determine their position, it is equally certain that he gave verbal assurances to Mr. Lincoln that the State would supply her quota of troops, and give him military support.

The indications of sentiment in the Border States soon ripened into open avowals. Tennessee seceded from the Union on the 6th of May; on the 18th day of May the State of Arkansas was formally admitted into the Southern Confederacy; and on the 21st of the same month, the sovereign Convention of North Carolina, by a unanimous vote, passed an ordinance of secession. This latter State, although slow to secede and accomplish formally her separation from the Union, had acted with singular spirit in giving early and valuable evidence of sympathy with the Southern cause. Under the orders of her Governor, Fort Macon, near Beaufort, was seized on the 15th of April, and promptly garrisoned by volunteers from Greensborough and other places. Fort Caswell was also taken, and on the 19th the Arsenal of Fayetteville was captured without bloodshed, thus securing to the State and the South sixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which twenty-eight thousand were of the most approved modern construction.

Virginia had taken the decisive step, and passed her ordinance of secession on the 17th day of April. It became an immediate concern to secure for the State all the arms, munitions, ships, war stores, and military posts within her borders, which there was power to seize. Two points were of special importance: one was the Navy Yard, at Gosport, with its magnificent dry-dock-its huge ship-houses, shops, forges, ware-rooms, rope-walks, seasoned timber for ships, masts, cordage, boats, ammunition, small arms, and cannon. Besides all these treasures, it had lying in its waters several vessels of war. The other point was Harper's Ferry on the Potomac River, with its armory and arsenal, containing about ten thousand muskets and five thousand rifles, with machinery for the purpose of manufacturing arms, capable with a sufficient force of workmen, of turning out twenty-five thousand muskets a year.

Movements to secure these places and their advantages were only partially successful. In two days a large force of volunteers had collected at Harper's Ferry. The small Federal force there requested a parley; this was granted; but in a short time flames were seen to burst from the armory and arsenal; the garrison had set fire to the arms and buildings, and escaped across the railroad bridge into Maryland. The Virginia troops instantly rushed into the buildings. A large number of the arms were consumed, but about five thousand improved muskets in complete order, and three thousand unfinished small arms, were saved. The retreat

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ing garrison had laid trains to blow up the workshops, but the courage and rapid movement of the Virginians, extinguished them, and thus saved to their State the invaluable machinery for making muskets and rifles.

On the succeeding day preparations were made by the Federals for the destruction of the Navy Yard at Gosport, while reinforcements were thrown into Fortress Monroe. The work of destruction was not as fully completed as the enemy had designed; the dry-dock, which alone cost several millions of dollars, was but little damaged; but the destruction of property was immense. All the ships in the harbour, excepting an old dismantled frigate, the United States, were set fire to and scuttled. But the Merrimac, a powerful steam frigate of twenty-six hundred tons, new, fully equipped, and nearly ready for sea, was only partially destroyed, and became, as we shall hereafter see, a famous prize of the Confederacy.

At this time it was expected that Maryland would emulate the heroic example of Virginia, and cast her fortunes with that of the Confederacy. But two days after the secession of Virginia occurred a memorable collision in the streets of Baltimore; and the first blood of Southerners was shed on the soil of Maryland. When it became certain that Northern troops were to be assembled for the purpose of invading the seceded States, the indignation of the people of Maryland, and especially of Baltimore, could not be restrained. It being known that a body of volunteers from Massachusetts were coming through the city, on the 19th of April, a fierce and determined purpose to resist their passage was aroused. As several hundred of these volunteers, sixty of whom only were armed and uniformed, were passing through the city in horse-cars, they found the track barricaded near one of the docks by stones, sand, and old anchors thrown upon it, and were compelled to attempt the passage to the depot, at the other end of the city, on foot. A body of citizens got in front of the troops, checked their advance, shouting, threatening, taunting them as mercenaries, and uttering loud cheers for the Southern Confederacy. A Confederate flag was displayed by some of the crowd. Stones were thrown by some of the citizens; two soldiers were struck down, and many others severely hurt. At this time the troops presented arms and fired. Several citizens fell dead, others were wounded, and falling, were borne off by those near them. Fury took possession of the crowd; up to this time they had used no weapons more deadly than stones, but now revolvers were drawn and fired into the column of troops, and men were rushing in search of fire-arms. The firing on both sides continued in quick succession of shots from Frederick to South streets. Several of the citizens fell, but, undismayed, they pressed the soldiers with an incessant and heavy volley of stones. The troops were unable to withstand the gathering crowd; they were bewildered by their mode of attack; they pressed along the streets confused and staggering, breaking into a run whenever there

was an opportunity to do so, and turning at intervals to fire upon the citizens who pursued them.

Harassed and almost exhausted, the troops at length reached Camden station. But here the fight continued without intermission; stones were hurled into the cars with such violence that the windows and panelling were shattered; the soldiers' faces and bodies were streaming with blood, and they could only protect themselves by lying down or stooping below the windows. Taunts clothed in the most fearful language, were hurled at them; men pressed up to the windows of the car, presenting knives and revolvers, and cursing up in the faces of the soldiers; and for half a mile along the track there was a struggling and shouting mass of human beings -citizens piling the track with obstructions, and policemen removing them as fast as possible. In the midst of the excitement, amid hootings, shouts, and curses, the train moved off; and as it passed from the depot a dozen muskets were fired into the crowd, the volley killing a well-known merchant, who was taking no part in the fight, and was standing as a spectator at some distance from the track.

In this irregular combat two soldiers were killed and several severely wounded; while, on the other side, the casualties were more serious-nine citizens killed and three wounded. A terrrible excitement ensued in Baltimore, and continued for weeks. The bridges on the railroad leading to the Susquehanna were destroyed; the regular route of travel was broken up; and large bodies of Northern troops were thus diverted from the railroad lines, and placed in the necessity of being carried in transports to Annapolis. Mass meetings were held in Baltimore, and speeches of defiance made to the Government at Washington. The city council appropriated five hundred thousand dollars for the avowed purpose of putting the city in a state of defence, but with the farther intent on the part of many, that instant measures should be taken to relieve the State from Federal rule.

But this rule was steadily encroaching upon Maryland, and strengthening itself beyond the hope of successful resistance. Each day Southern sentiment became more timid and equivocal, as the Federal power commenced to display itself. The Legislature of Maryland at last put the State in an attitude of indefinite submission. It passed resolutions protesting against the military occupation of the State by the Federal Government, and indicating sympathy with the South, but concluding with the declaration: "Under existing circumstances, it is inexpedient to call a sovereign Convention of the State at this time, or take any measures for the immediate organization or arming of the militia.”

Baltimore was rapidly brought under the yoke. By a concerted movement of the Federal authorities, Col. Kane, the marshal of police, was arrested; the Police Board suspended; a provost-marshal appointed, and

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Baltimore brought under the law of the drum-head. The municipal police were disbanded, and a reign of terror threatened to establish itself in what was already a condition of anarchy. The writ of habeas corpus was sus pended; the houses of suspected persons were searched; blank warrants were issued for domiciliary visits; and the mayor and members of the police board were arrested, and, without a trial, imprisoned in a military fortress. In other parts of the State, the inauguration of "the strong government" steadily progressed. And so thoroughly effective was it that in less than a month after the Baltimore riot, Maryland was raising her quota of troops under Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, and Governor Hicks had openly called for four regiments of volunteers to assist the Northern Government in its now fully declared policy of a war of invasion and fell destruction upon the South. But the history of such a change has to be read in the light of many circumstances. Disarmed; not even allowed to retain its militia organization; planted with troops; subjected to an infamous and degraded sway; cozened and betrayed by its Governor ; divided within itself; its citizens separated by long-exasperated lines of prejudice; its press exhausting itself to envenom the differences of men; "suspicion poisoning his brother's cup;" corruption chaffering in public market-places for the souls of men; and crime and outrage recognizable only before the tribunal of Despotism, it is not wonderful that Maryland became the easy prey of a Government that scrupled at no means of success and spared no opportunity for the perversion of the principles of men.

Whether the easy subjugation of Maryland persuaded the people of the North that the war was to be a slight task, or whether that opinion is to be ascribed to their own insolent vanity, it is very certain that they entered upon the war with a light estimation of its consequences and with an exhibition of passion, rant and bombast, such, perhaps, as the world has never seen in similar circumstances. The Government at Washington shared, or encouraged for its own purposes, the vulgar opinion that the war was soon to be despatched. It either believed, or affected to believe, that the Southern States would be reduced in a few months. But it is to be remarked that the Federal Government had a particular purpose in reducing, in popular opinion, the importance of the contest. It desired to attract volunteers by the prospects of short service and cheap glory; and it was especially anxious to guard against any probability of recognition by England or France of the new Confederacy, and to anticipate opinion in Europe by misrepresenting the movements of the Southern States as nothing more than a local and disorganized insurrection, incidental to the history of all governments, and unworthy of any serious foreign attention. It was in this view Mr. Lincoln had framed his proclamation, calling for an army of seventy-five thousand men. He took

especial pains to model this paper after a Riot Act: to style sovereign States "unlawful combinations;" and to "command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days."

But something more remarkable than this grotesque anticipation of a four years' war, was to emanate from the statesmanship at Washington. On the 4th of May, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, wrote a letter of instructions to Mr. Dayton, the recently appointed minister to France, designed as a circular notice to the European courts, which, as a tissue of misrepresentation and absurdity, and an exhibition of littleness in a politician's cast of the future, is one of the most remarkable productions of the political history of the war. In this document the Federal Secretary of State urged that Mr. Dayton could not be "too decided or too explicit in assuring the French Government that there was no idea of the dissolution of the Union; and that the existing commotion was only to be ranked among the dozen passing changes in the history of that Union. He concluded: "Tell M. Thouvenel, then, with the highest consideration and good feeling, that the thought of a dissolution of this Union, peaceably or by force, has never entered into the mind of any candid statesman here, and it is high time that it be dismissed by statesmen in Europe." Yet at the time this was penned eight millions of Mr. Seward's countrymen had decided on a dissolution of the Union, and the gathering armies of the South were within a few miles of the Federal capital.

Meanwhile the action of the European Governments with reference to the war was thought to be indecisive, and was still the subject of a certain anxiety. The British Government and the French Emperor, although they regarded and ranked the Confederate States as belligerents, proclaimed a strict neutrality in the war, and closed their ports to the armed vessels and privateers of either of the belligerents. The British House of Commons had deemed it necessary to adjourn the discussion of American affairs by the indefinite postponement of Mr. Gregory's notice of a motion on the subject. That gentleman had sought to defend his motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy in a letter in the London Times, of a power and ingenuity calculated to affect public opinion, and putting the question to the people of England and of France in every possible aspect. He pointed out the reasons of his advocacy of the recognition of the new Confederate republic in several particulars: as an effectual blow at the slave trade, "mainly carried on by ships sailing from Northern ports and floated by Northern capital; " as an amelioration of the condition of slavery; as a means of peace and unrestricted commerce; as a just retaliation upon the "Morrill" tariff, the successful issue of Northern policy, against which the South had protested; and as the vindication of the right of a people to assert their independence. Mr.