John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[90] Before daylight next morning, the bridges at Melvale, Relay House, and Cockeysville, on the Harrisburg road, and over the Bush and Gunpowder Rivers and Harris Creek on the Philadelphia road, were accordingly destroyed by fire, completely severing railroad communication with the North. The excuse was that they feared reprisal and revenge from the Northern armies; the real motive appears to have been the stronger underlying spirit of insurrection. Mayor Brown claimed that Governor Hicks approved the order; the Governor soon afterward publicly and officially denied it. Whether Mayor Brown was a secession conspirator seems doubtful; but it is hard to resist the inference that the revolutionists influenced his action. The controlling animus of the deed is clearly enough revealed in a telegram sent out that night by Marshal Kane:

Thank you for your offer; bring your men in by the first train and we will arrange with the railroad afterward. Streets red with Maryland blood. Send expresses over the mountains and valleys of Maryland and Virginia for the riflemen to come without delay. Fresh hordes will be down on us to-morrow (the 20th). We will fight them and whip them, or die.

This language at night, from the man who that morning had risked his life to protect the Massachusetts soldiers, sufficiently shows the overmastering outbreak of revolutionary madness.