[253] as long as they were orderly. The crowd then left them and went up Baltimore street cheering for the Stars and Stripes. These incidents serve to indicate the condition of the public mind upon the eve of April 19. The fever heat had not been reached suddenly. The news of the attack on Fort Sumter and its surrender had produced a high state of excitement. Men gathered in great numbers around the newspaper offices, and almost continuously the sidewalks of Baltimore street, between Calvert and Holliday, were impassable. The appearance of a man in public—and such things were not infrequent—with Confederate or Union colors would be the signal for the assembling of a mob. Politicians and intemperate advocates of the North or of the South would harangue the crowds on the street and add fuel to the flame.
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Richmond, VA. 1901.
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