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April 19th, 1861.
[from the Baltimore, Md., sun, July 24, 25, 1901.]
A record of the events in
Baltimore, Md., on that day.
Conflict of the Sixth Massachusetts regiment with citizens.
Of the 215,000 people who resided in
Baltimore on April 19, 1861, there are perhaps not 50,000 remaining here to this day. Of the thousands who took part in the attack upon the
Massachusetts troops as they passed through the city on that eventful day, or who witnessed the attack, but few remain.
To the great mass of our people the riot of April 19 is simply an event of history.
Men who were born here since it occurred have arrived at middle age, and those who were in the melee can now look back upon that time of intense excitement as calmly and dispassionately as upon the assault upon the
British troops at
Lexington, on April 19, 1775.
Much has been said and written about the strange coincidence in the date of the first bloodshed in the two most momentous conflicts of modern times.
But the coincidence of dates is the only similarity between the two events.
The minute men of
Massachusetts who attacked the
British soldiers April 19, 1775, had long looked forward to the event, and were prepared and armed for it. The people of
Baltimore were suddenly confronted with an army of armed men whom they regarded as enemies and invaders, and upon the impulse and fury of the moment, made an assault upon them.
This attack was entirely unpremeditated.
On April 18, when the rumor reached the city that troops would arrive during the afternoon by the
Northern Central road, a meeting of ‘Southern Rights’ men, of which
Albert Ritchie and
G. Harlan Williams, were secretaries, was held at the
Taylor building, on Fayette street, near
Calvert, and while it was not determed to offer resistance to the passage of the troops through the city, yet a resolution offered by
Mr. Ross Winans was of a bold and somewhat threatening character.
