Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

“ [410] to our posterity,” and to fly to the protection of the imperiled Republic. They almost felt the tread of the tall men of the Ohio Valley,¹ as they were preparing to pass over the “Beautiful River” into the Virginia border. They had heard the war-notes of Blair, and Morton, and Yates, and Randall, and Kirkwood, and Ramsay, all loyal Governors of the populous and puissant States of that great Northwest, and were satisfied that the people would respond as promptly as had those of New England; so they hastened to bar up the nearest passage for them to the Capital over the Alleghany Mountains, until the disloyal Minute-men of Maryland and Virginia, and of the District of Columbia, should fulfill the instructions and satisfy the expectations of the conspirators at Montgomery in the seizure of the Capital. They found ready and eager sympathizers in Baltimore; and only a few hours before the coveted arms in the Harper's Ferry Arsenal were set a-blazing, and the Virginia plunderers were foiled, the “National Volunteer Association” of Baltimore (under whose auspices the secession flag had been raised on Federal Hill that day, and a salute attempted in honor of the secession of Virginia), led by its President, William Burns, held a meeting in Monument Square. T. Parkins Scott presided. He and others addressed a multitude of citizens, numbered by thousands. They harangued the people with exciting and incendiary phrases. They denounced “coercion,” and called upon the people to arm and drill, for a conflict was at hand. “I do not care,” said Wilson C. Carr, “how many Federal troops are sent to Washington, they will soon find themselves surrounded by such an army from Virginia and Maryland that escape to their homes will be impossible; and when the seventy-five thousand who are intended to invade the South shall have polluted that soil with their touch, the South will exterminate and sweep them from the earth.” ² These words were received with the wildest yells and huzzas, and the meeting finally broke up with three cheers for “the South,” and the same for “President Davis.”

With such seditious teachings; with such words of encouragement to mob violence ringing in their ears, the populace of Baltimore went to their slumbers on that night of the 18th of April, when it was known that a portion of the seventy-five thousand to be slaughtered were on their way from New England, and would probably reach the city on the morrow. While the people were slumbering, the secessionists were holding meetings in different wards, and the conspirators were planning dark deeds for that morrow, at Taylor's Building. There, it is said, the Chief of Police, Kane, and the President of the Monument Square meeting, and others, counseled resistance to any Northern or Western troops who might attempt to pass through the city.

There was much feverishness in the public mind in Baltimore on the morning of the 19th of April. Groups of excited men were seen on the corners of streets, and at the places of public resort. Well-known secessionists were hurrying to and fro with unusual agility; and in front of the