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and Police
Marshal Kane, the telegraph wires connecting
Baltimore with the
Free States were cut, and the railroad bridges northward and north-eastward from
Baltimore, on the railroads to
Philadelphia and
Harrisburg, burned; thus shutting off
Washington and the
Government from all communication with the
Northern, as
Gov. Letcher and his backers had just excluded them from all intercourse with the
Southern, States.
The telegraphic communication westward was preserved, to enable the master-spirits to dispatch to their confederates in
Western Maryland such messages as this to one at
Frederick, who soon after joined the Confederate army:
Thank you for your offer.
Bring your men 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.
Further hordes [of Union volunteers] will be down upon us to-morrow [the 20th]. We will fight them, and whip them, or die.
Mayor Brown sent three envoys to the
President, bearing a dispatch indorsed by
Gov. Hicks, wherein he says:
The people are exasperated to the highest degree by the passage of troops, and the citizens are unusually decided in the opinion that no more troops should be ordered to come.
The authorities of the city did their best to-day to protect both strangers and citizens, and to prevent a collision, but in vain; and, but for their great efforts, a fearful slaughter would have occurred.
Under these circumstances, it is my solemn duty to inform you that it is not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore, unless they fight their way at every step.
I, therefore, hope and trust, and most earnestly request, that no more troops be permitted or ordered by the Government to pass through the city.
If they should attempt it, the responsibility for the bloodshed will not rest upon me.
The Committee telegraphed back the following message:
To
Mayor Brown,
Baltimore: We have seen the
President and
Gen. Scott.
We bear from the former a letter to the
Mayor and Governor, declaring that no troops shall be brought through
Baltimore, if, in a military point of view, without opposition, they can be marched around
Baltimore.
The President of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad had already responded to a similar message as follows:
gentlemen: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, in which you advise that the troops now here be sent back to the “borders of
Maryland.”
Most cordially approving this advice, I have just telegraphed the same to the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore railroad company, and this company will act in accordance therewith.
Gov. Andrew, of
Massachusetts, having telegraphed to
Mayor Brown as follows:
I pray you to cause the bodies of our Massachusetts soldiers, dead in Baltimore, to be laid out, preserved in ice, and tenderly sent forward by express to me. All expenses will be paid by the Commonwealth :
Mayor Brown responded as follows:
Sir: No one deplores the sad events of yesterday in this city more deeply than myself, but they were inevitable.
Our people viewed the passage of armed troops of another State, through the streets, as an invasion of our soil, and could not be restrained.
The authorities exerted themselves to the best of their ability, but with only partial success.
Gov. Hicks was present, and concurs in all my views as to the proceedings now necessary for our protection.
When are these scenes to cease?
Are we to have a war of sections?
God forbid! The bodies of the Massachusetts soldiers could not be sent on to Boston, as you requested, all communication between this city and Philadelphia by railroad, and with Boston by steamers, having ceased; but they have been placed in cemented coffins, and will be placed with proper funeral ceremonies in the mausoleum of Green Mount Cemetery, where
