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

[451] corpus were issued for their release. At first some of them were obeyed, but finally, by order of the Government, they were disregarded, and their issue ceased. The most notable of these cases, at the beginning, was that of John Merryman, a member of the Maryland Legislature, who was cast into Fort McHenry late in May. The Chief-Justice of the United States (R. B. Taney), residing in Baltimore, took action in the matter, but General Cadwalader, the commander of the department, refused to obey the mandates of this functionary, as well as that of the inferior judge, and the matter was dropped, excepting in the form of personal, newspaper, and legislative discussions of the subject, the chief questions at issue being, Which branch of the Government has the power to suspend the privilege of the writ? and Do circumstances warrant the exercise of that power? We will not discuss that question here. Many arrests were made; among them a large number of the members of the Maryland Legislature, the Mayors of Baltimore and Washington, Marshal Kane and the Police Commissioners of Baltimore, and a number of other prominent men throughout the country. Within the space of six months after the tragedy in Baltimore, no less than one hundred prisoners of state, to whom the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was denied, were confined in Fort Lafayette alone.

The Government not only resorted to these extreme measures, but made greater preparations for a conflict of arms, plainly perceiving that insurrection was rapidly assuming the proportions of formidable and extended rebellion. By a proclamation on the 27th of April, the blockade¹ was extended to the ports of North Carolina and Virginia; and by another proclamation on the 3d of May, the President called into the service of the United States forty-two thousand volunteers for three years; ordered an increase of the regular Army of twenty-two thousand seven hundred and fourteen officers and enlisted men, for not less than one year nor more than three years; and for the enlistment of eighteen thousand seamen for the naval service. This was the first call for volunteers, the former requisition being for the militia of the several States,² full one hundred and fifty thousand of whom were organized or were forming at the close of April. The response to this was equally if not more remarkable. The enthusiasm of the people was unbounded. Money and men were offered in greater abundance than the Government seemed to need. The voluntary contributions offered to the public treasury, and for the fitting out of troops and maintaining their families, by individuals, associations, and corporations, amounted, at the beginning of May, to full forty millions of dollars!

Six weeks earlier than this, that sagacious Frenchman, Count Agenor de Gasparin, one of the few foreigners who seemed to comprehend the American people, and the nature and significance of the impending struggle, wrote, almost prophetically, saying:--“At the present hour, the Democracy of the South is about to degenerate into demagogism. But the North presents quite a different spectacle. Mark what is passing there; pierce beneath ap. pearances, beneath the inevitable wavering of a debut, so well prepared for ”