OPPOSING POLITICAL FORCES IN MARYLAND.

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must be between the North and the South, we may force the contending parties to transfer the field of battle from our soil, so that our lives and property may be secure."

The secessionists in the Legislature, doubtful of gaining control of Maryland by constitutional means, if not made circumspect by a threat, said to have been made by General Butler, that he would arrest them all if they should pass an Ordinance of Secession, changed their tactics. They procured a vote against the secession of the State, and then proceeded to appoint a State Board of Public Safety, which was invested with full powers to control the organization and direction of all the military forces in the commonwealth, and to adopt measures for its safety, peace, and defense." The members of the Board were all active secessionists, excepting Governor Hicks. They were not required to take the usual oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and were left free to act in accordance with their revolutionary proclivities: It was evident from the composition of the Board, and the character of the men who established it-men who openly advocated the secession of Maryland, and uniformly denounced the acts of the National Government as tyrannical that it was to be used as a revolutionary machine, fraught with immense power to do mischief. The loyal people of the State, perceiving with amazement the practical patriotism of the inhabitants of the Free-labor States, and feeling the tread of tens of thousands of armed men hurrying across Maryland to the defense of the Government, recovered, in the presence of this new danger, from the paralysis produced by the terrible events of the 19th, and were aroused to action. A Home Guard of Unionists was formed in Frederick, under the direct observation of the disloyal Legislature. Similar action was taken in other parts of the State, especially in the more northern portion; and, on the evening of the 4th of May, an immense Union meeting was held in Baltimore, whereat the creation of the Board of Public Safety and other revolutionary acts of the Legislature were heartily condemned. On the same day, Otho Scott, Robert McLane, and W. J. Ross, a Committee of that Legislature, were in Washington, remonstrating with the President and Secretary of War against the military occupation, by National troops, of the capital of Maryland and of some of the railways of the State. They returned to their constituents "painfully confident," they said, "that a war was to be waged to reduce all the seceding States to allegiance to the United States Government, and that the whole military power of the Federal Government would be exerted to accomplish that purpose."

General Butler was aware of the latent force of the Unionism of Maryland, and of its initial developments, and felt that it was time for him to move. He had proposed to himself to do at once, with a few men, what the Lieutenant-General, with more caution, had proposed to do at some indefinite time in the future, with twelve thousand men, namely, seize and hold the city of Baltimore. Accordingly, on Saturday afternoon, the 4th of May, while the Commissioners of the Maryland Legislature were protesting before the President against Butler's occupation of their political capital, he issued orders for the Eighth New York and Sixth Massachusetts regiments, with Major A. M. Cook's battery of the Boston Light Artillery, to be

1 Report of the Commissioners. May 6, 1861.

444

EVENTS AT THE RELAY HOUSE.

ready to march at two o'clock the next morning. These troops were in Washington City. At dawn on the 5th, they left the Capital in thirty cars; and about two hours later they alighted at the Relay House, within nine

THE RELAY HOUSE IN 1864.

over the Patapsco Valley, and the roads leading to Baltimore and Harper's Ferry. General Butler accompanied the troops, and established a camp on the hills, a quarter of a mile from the Relay House, near the residences of P. O'Hern and J. H. Luckett. The vriter visited this interesting spot late in 1864. Brigadier-General John R. Kenly, whose meritorious services in Baltimore will be noticed presently, was then in command there. On the hights back of the Relay House, near which General Butler encamped, was a regular earthwork, called Fort Dix, and a substantial block-house built of timber, which is seen in our little picture. It was a commanding position, overlooking the narrow valley of the Patapsco above the viaduct toward Ellicott's mills, up which passes the railway to Harper's Ferry, and the expanding valley and beautifully rolling country below the

ridge, are the residences of several gentlemen of wealth, among them J. H. B. Latrobe, a distinguished citizen of Maryland, whose house may be observed on the wooded hills seen beyond the viaduct in the little accompanying picture.

General Butler remained a little more than a week at the Relay House, preparing to carry out his plan for seizing Baltimore. Meanwhile General Patterson, anxious to vindicate the dignity and honor of his Government,

LOYAL TROOPS PASS THROUGH BALTIMORE.

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and to teach the secessionists of Maryland a practical lesson of its power, and compel them to submit to lawful authority, sent the First Pennsylvania Volunteer Artillery (Seventeenth in the line) and Sherman's Battery, in all nine hundred and thirty men, under the command of his son, Francis E. Patterson, to force a passage through Baltimore. These troops left Philadelphia. on the 8th of May, and on the following morning, accompanied by a portion of the Third Infantry Regiment of regulars from Texas, embarked on the steamers Funny Cadwalader and Maryland, and went down Chesapeake Bay. The whole force under Colonel Patterson was about twelve hundred. They debarked at Locust Point, near Fort McHenry, under cover of the guns of the Harriet Lane and a small gunboat, at about four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, in the presence of the Mayor of Baltimore, the Police Commissioners, and Marshal Kane and a considerable police force.' A counter-revolution in public sentiment was then making the Unionists of Maryland happy. The presence of troops at the Relay House was promoting and stimulating the Union feeling amazingly, and these troops landed and passed through the city on their way toward Washington without molestation. The wharves were crowded with excited citizens when the debarkation took place, and hundreds of these gave the Pennsylvanians hearty shouts of welcome. These were the first of that immense army that streamed through Baltimore without hinderance, thousands after thousands, while the great war that ensued went on.

General Butler was visited at the Relay House by many Unionists from Baltimore, who gave him all desired information; and he received such communications from General Scott, on application, that he felt warranted in moving upon the town. He had informed Scott of the increasing power of the Unionists in Baltimore; reminded him that the city was in the Department of Annapolis; and expressed the belief that, with his force in hand at the Relay House, he could march through it. Colonel (afterward General) Schuyler Hamilton, who had accompanied the New York Seventh to Washington, was then on the staff of the General-in-chief. He had learned the metal of General Butler, and was not inclined to cast any obstacles in his way. The orders of General Scott, prepared by him, gave Butler permission to arrest secessionists in and out of Baltimore, prevent armed insurgents from going to join those already in force at Harper's Ferry, and to look after a large quantity of gunpowder said to be stored in a church in Baltimore for the use of the secessionists. To do this, Butler must use force; and as no word that came from the General-in-chief forbade his going into Baltimore with his troops, he prepared to do so. Already a party of the Sixth Massachusetts had performed good service, in connection with a company of the New York Eighth and two guns of the Boston Light Artillery,

1861.

all under Major Cook, in capturing Winans's steam-gun at Elli • May 10, cott's Mills, together with Dickinson, the inventor. Butler had promised Colonel Jones, of the Sixth, which had fought its way through Bal

It is related that when the troops landed, Marshal Kane, with a false pretense of loyalty, approached Major Sherman of the battery, and said: "Can I be of any assistance to you, Major ?"-"Who are you, Sir ?" inquired Sherman. I am Marshal of the Police of Baltimore," he replied, "and would render any assistance." "O, yea" Sherman replied, "we have heard of you in the region from whence we came; we have no need of you. We can help ourselves." The Marshal retired, with all his force, an object of supreme contempt 1 See page 440. Winans was an aged man. a thorough secessionist, and worth, it was estimated, about

446

BUTLER'S DESCENT UPON BALTIMORE.

timore on the 19th of April, that his regiment should again march through that city, and now it was invited to that duty.

Toward the evening of the 13th, the entire Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, and a part of the New York Eighth, with the Boston Light Artillerymen and two field-pieces-about one thousand men in all-and horses belonging to the General and his staff, were on a train of cars headed toward Harper's Ferry. Before this train was a short one, bearing fifty men, who were ordered up to Frederick to arrest Winans. When these trains moved úp along the margin of the Patapsco Valley, a spy of the Baltimore conspirators started for that city with two fast trotting horses, to carry the important information. The trains moved slowly for about two miles, and then backed as slowly to the Relay House, and past it, and at twilight had backed to the Camden Street Station in Baltimore. Intensely black clouds in the van of an approaching thunder-storm were brooding over the city, threatening a

fierce tempest, and few persons were abroad, or aware of this portentous arrival. The Mayor was informed of it in the course of the evening, and at once wrote a note to General Butler, saying that the sudden arrival of a large body of troops would create much surprise, and he would like to know whether the General intended to remain at the station, that the police might be notified, and take proper precautions for preserving the peace. Butler and his troops had disappeared in the gloom when the messenger with this note arrived at the Station; but the inquiry was fully answered, to the astonishment of the whole city, loyal and disloyal, carly the next morning, by a proclamation from the General in the columns of the faithful Clipper, dated "Federal Hill, Baltimore, May 14, 1861," in which it was announced that a detachment under his command occupied the city, "for the purpose, among other things, of enforcing respect and obedience to the laws, as well of the

fifteen millions of dollars. It was reported that he contributed largely in aid of the revolutionists; and that, among other things for their use, he manufactured five thousand pikes in his iron-works. He was arrested on a charge of treason, but the lenient Government released him.

This is a view of Federal Hill before General Butler occupied it. It was so named, because, upon its summit, there was a grand celebration in honor of the final ratification of the "Federal" or National Constitution, in 1788. It overlooks the harbor; and upon it was a telegraphic station, the old-fashioned semaphoric apparatus being used. It is seen toward the left of the picture.

MILITARY OCCUPATION OF FEDERAL HILL.

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State, if requested thereto by the civil authorities, as of the United States laws, which are being violated within its limits by some malignant and traitorous men; and in order to testify the acceptance by the Federal Government of the fact, that the city and all the well-intentioned portion of its inhabitants are loyal to the Union and the Constitution, and are to be so regarded and treated by all."

How came Butler and his men on Federal Hill? was a question upon thousands of lips on that eventful morning. They had moved stealthily from the station in the gloom, at half-past seven in the evening, piloted by Colonel Robert Hare, of Ellicott's Mills, and Captain McConnell, through Lee, Hanover, Montgomery, and Light Streets, to the foot of Federal Hill. The night was intensely dark, made so by the impending storm. The flashes of lightning and peals of thunder were terrific, but the rain was withheld until they had nearly reached their destination. Then it came like a flood, just as they commenced the ascent of the declivity. "The spectacle was grand," said the General to the writer, while

on the Ben Deford, lying off Fort Fisher one pleasant evening in December, 1864. "I was the first to reach the summit. The rain was falling in immense volames, and the lightning flashes followed each other in rapid succession, making the point of every bayonet in that slow-moving column appear like a tongue

of flame, and the burnished brass cannon like sheets of fire."

Officers and men were thoroughly drenched, and on the summit of the hill they found very little shelter. A house of refreshment, with a long upper and lower piazza, kept by a German, was taken possession of and made the General's head-quarters; and there, dripping with the rain, he sat down and wrote his proclamation, which appeared in the morning. His men had procured wood when the storm ceased, lighted fires, and were making themselves comfortable. At eight o'clock, long after his proclamation had been scattered over the town, he received the Mayor's message of the previous evening. Important events had transpire since it was written, twelve hours before. The Massachusetts Sixth had again marched through Baltimore, not, as before, the objects of assault by a brutal mob, but as a potential force, to hold that mob and all others in subserviency to law and order, and welcomed as deliverers by thousands of loyal citizens.

So confident was General Butler in the moral and physical strength of his position, and of the salutary influence of his proclamation, in which he promised security to the peaceful and true, punishment to the turbulent and false, and justice to all, that he rode through the city with his staff on the day after his arrival, dined leisurely at the Gillmore House, and had conferences with friends. In that proclamation he forbade transportation of supplies to the insurgents; asked for commissary stores, at fair prices, to the amount of forty thousand rations, and also clothing; forbade all assemblages of irregular military organizations; directed State military officers to report