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portions of them were speedily consumed.
Another party went up the Northern Central Railway to Cockeysville, about fifteen miles north of Baltimore, and destroyed the two wooden bridges there, and other smaller structures on the road.
In the mean time the telegraph wires had been cut on all the lines leading out of Baltimore, excepting the one that kept the conspirators in communication with Richmond by the way of Harper's Ferry.
Thus, all communication by railway or telegraph between the seat of government and the loyal States of the Union was absolutely cut off, or in the hands of the insurgents.1
The Committee sent to the President by Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown had an interview with him at an early hour on the morning of the 20th.
The President and General Scott had already been in consultation on the subject of the passage of troops through Baltimore, and the latter had hastily said: “Bring them around the city.”
Acting upon this hint, the President assured the Committee that no more troops should be called through Baltimore, if they could pass around it without opposition or molestation.
This assurance was telegraphed by the Committee to the Mayor, but it did not satisfy the conspirators.
They had determined that no more troops from the North should pass through Maryland, and so they would be excluded from the Capital.
Military preparations went actively on in Baltimore to carry out this determination, and every hour the isolation of the Capital from the loyal men of the country was becoming more and more complete.
The excitement in Washington was fearful; and at three o'clock on the morning of the 21st (Sunday) the President sent for Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown.
The former was not in the city.
The latter, with Messrs. Dobbin and Brune, and S. T. Wallis, hastened to Washington, where they arrived at ten o'clock in the morning.
At that interview General Scott proposed
1 For a few days succeeding the riot, no person was allowed to leave Baltimore for the North without a pass from the President of the Board of Police. approved by the Mayor;1 and these permissions were sparingly issued. Neither were the mails allowed to go North, for it was desirable to keep the people of the Free-labor States ignorant of affairs at Washington until the seizure of the Capital, by the insurgents, should be accomplished. The first mail-bag that passed through Baltimore after the riot there. was carried by James D. Gay, a member of the Ringgold Artillery from Reading, already mentioned. He left Washington for home on the evening of the 19th of April. with a carpet-bag full of letters from members of his company to their friends. He was in Baltimore during the fearful night of the 19th. when the railway bridges were burned: and. after escaping many personal perils. he managed to reach Cockeysville. in a carriage with some others. on the 20th. where, north of the burnt bridges, he took the cars for home on the Northern Central Railway. He reached York that night, and Reading the next day, where the contents of his bag were soon distributed. These letters. some of which
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| The private Mail-bag. |
2 The following is a copy of one of the passes, now before me :--
Scanned printed text.
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