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[449] from Baltimore, in compliance with the wishes of General Scott. On the contrary, it had the appearance of commendation, for he immediately offered him the commission of a Major-General of Volunteers, and the command of a much more extended military district, including Eastern Virginia and the two Carolinas, with his Headquarters at Fortress Monroe. He was succeeded in command at Baltimore by General Cadwalader, of Philadelphia, and the troops were temporarily withdrawn. Afterward the Fifth New York Regiment (Zouave), Colonel Abraham Duryee, occupied Federal Hill, and thereon built the strong earthwork known as Fort Federal Hill, whose cannon commanded both the town and Fort McHenry.

The 14th of May was a memorable one in the annals of Maryland, as the time when the tide of secession, which for weeks had been threatening to ingulf it in revolution, was absolutely checked, and the Unionists of the State were placed upon solid vantage-ground, from which they were never driven a line, but were strengthened every hour. On that day General Butler broke the power of the conspirators, by the military occupation of Baltimore and the promulgation of his proclamation, which disarmed treason. On that day the dangerously disloyal Legislature adjourned, and Governor Hicks, relieved of the pressure of rampant treachery around him, and assured by the Secretary of War that Maryland troops would not be ordered out of the State, issued a proclamation calling for the four regiments named in the Secretary's requisition for militia as the quota of that Commonwealth. Thenceforth the tongues of loyal Marylanders were unloosed, and treason became weaker every hour; and their State was soon numbered among the stanchest of loyal Commonwealths, outstripping in practical patriotism Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. On that eventful 14th of May, the veteran Major W. W. Morris, in command at Fort McHenry. near Baltimore (which had lately been well garrisoned), first gave practical force to the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, which the exigency of the times seemed to give constitutional sanction for.1 A man claiming to be a soldier of the Maryland State Militia, was imprisoned in Fort McHenry. Judge Giles, of Baltimore, issued a writ of habeas corpus for his release, which Major Morris refused to obey. His letter to the Judge was a spirited protest against the treasonable practices around him, and seemed to be a full justification of his action. “At the date of issuing your writ,” he said, “and for two weeks previous, the city in which you live, and where your court has been held, was entirely under the control of revolutionary authorities. Within that period United States soldiers, while committing no offense, had been perfidiously attacked and inhumanly murdered in your streets;

April 19, 1861.
no punishment had been awarded, and, I believe, no arrests had been made for these atrocious crimes;2 supplies of provisions intended for this garrison had been stopped; the intention to capture ”

1 The second clause of the ninth section of the first Article of the National Constitution says:--“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”

2 In the Maryland Legislature, S. T. Wallis moved--“That the measures adopted and conduct pursued by the authorities of the City of Baltimore, on Friday, the 19th of April, and since that time, be, and the same are hereby, made valid by the General Assembly.” This would cover the conspirators and their tools, the mob, from punishment. In furtherance of this project for shielding the guilty, T. Parkins Scott proposed, in the same body, a bill to suspend the operations of the; criminal laws, and that the Grand Jury should be stopped from finding indictments against any of the offenders.--Baltimore Clipper, June 28, 1861.

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