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

The secessionists in the Legislature, doubtful of gaining control of Maryland by constitutional means, if not made circumspect by a threat, said to have been made by General Butler, that he would arrest them all if they should pass an Ordinance of Secession, changed their tactics. They procured a vote against the secession of the State, and then. proceeded to appoint a State Board of Public Safety, which was invested with full powers to control the organization and direction of all the military forces in the commonwealth, and to “adopt measures for its safety, peace, and defense.” The members of the Board were all active secessionists, excepting Governor Hicks. They were not required to take the usual oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and were left free to act in accordance with their revolutionary proclivities. It was evident from the composition of the Board, and the character of the men who established it — men who openly advocated the secession of Maryland, and uniformly denounced the acts of the National Government as tyrannical — that it was to be used as a revolutionary machine, fraught with immense power to do mischief. The loyal people of the State, perceiving with amazement the practical patriotism of the inhabitants of the Free-labor States, and feeling the tread of tens of thousands of armed men hurrying across Maryland to the defense of the Government, recovered, in the presence of this new danger, from the paralysis produced by the terrible events of the 19th, and were aroused to action. A Home Guard of Unionists was formed in Frederick, under the direct observation of the disloyal Legislature. Similar action was taken in other parts of the State, especially in the more northern portion; and, on the evening of the 4th of May, an immense Union meeting was held in Baltimore, whereat the creation of the Board of Public Safety and other revolutionary acts of the Legislature were heartily condemned. On the same day, Otho Scott, Robert McLane, and W. J. Ross, a Committee of that Legislature, were in Washington, remonstrating with the President and Secretary of War against the military occupation, by National troops, of the capital of Maryland and of some of the railways of the State. They returned to their constituents “painfully confident,” they said, “that a war was to be waged to reduce all the seceding States to allegiance to the United States Government, and that the whole military power of the Federal Government would be exerted to accomplish that purpose.” ¹

General Butler was aware of the latent force of the Unionism of Maryland, and of its' initial developments, and felt that it was time for him to move. He had proposed to himself to do at once, with a few men, what the Lieutenant-General, with more caution, had proposed to do at some indefinite time in the future, with twelve thousand men, namely, seize and hold the city of Baltimore. Accordingly, on Saturday afternoon, the 4th of May, while the Commissioners of the Maryland Legislature were protesting before the President against Butler's occupation of their political capital, he issued orders for the Eighth New York and Sixth Massachusetts regiments, with Major A. M. Cook's battery of the Boston Light Artillery, to be