Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/449

Rh officer complained to Mr. Cameron that he was quite content to be relieved altogether, but &quot; will not be disgraced.&quot; Mr. Ross Winans, of Baltimore, had been arrested by General Butler on the i5th of May and sent to Fort McHenry, but he was promptly released by General Cadwallader, who succeeded Butler in command. The Union defense committee, of New York, through its chairman, Mr. J. J. Astor, Jr., proposed to send a number of rifled cannon to Fort Pickens, but Secretary Cameron would &quot; give no such authority as is therein asked for, and informed the committee that the war department would act through the agency of its own proper officers. On the 21 st of May, the Nightingale, of Boston, sailing under American colors, was captured slaves, presenting the singular projection of the unlawful slave trade by a Boston ship into the great crisis of the slavery institution.

General Scott ordered the arrest of the Baltimore police board by General Banks, successor to General Cadwallader. They were accordingly seized and imprisoned in Fort McHenry, their powers suspended, and a provost marshal appointed. Marshal Kane had been previously arrested. These illegal and violent proceedings of General Banks were resented with warm indignation by the respectable officials who were thus taken from their homes by military force at night and confined in prison without information of the cause of their arrest. Having no redress by any court, they forwarded an able memorial to the United States Congress, accompanied by another from the mayor and council of the city. Congress received these memorials and by resolution called on the President to explain the arrest and imprisonment of these police commissioners. The President replied with the brief and formal answer that "the public interest for bade compliance with the request of Congress."

These very troublesome domestic questions were