Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/27

Rh And they were afire at the threat of invasion of Virginia. Had the governor hinted at his ulterior hopes and designs—at his purpose to keep Maryland quiet until she could be occupied by Northern troops and delivered, tied and manacled, to the Union authorities—had he given open ground for suspicion of treachery, the State would have risen, he would have been expelled, his government eradicated, and a revolutionary government of action instituted.

Mayor Brown was a high-minded, just and honorable gentleman. But he was a lawyer and an old man. He was devoted to his State and to his city, and no purer patriot ever lived than George William Brown. But he believed in law; he could conceive of nothing higher than law. Force to him meant riot, and in a great city riot always means arson, robbery, murder and license. The mayor believed that with the police and the fire departments he could control revolution and subdue the fires of insurrection. He faithfully did his duty as he saw it. He and his police commissioners tried to keep the peace, and in three months all were landed in Federal prisons, where they were incarcerated for fourteen months, beyond the reach of habeas corpus, without charge or indictment. Maryland thus suffered "the crucifixion of the soul," for her heart was with the Confederacy and her body bound and manacled to the Union.

On April i8th a battery of United States artillery under Major Pemberton, accompanied by six companies of unarmed Pennsylvania militia, arrived by the Northern Central railroad from Harrisburg at Baltimore and marched via Howard street to the Baltimore & Ohio railroad station at Camden street, whence they were promptly dispatched to Washington. They were escorted through the city by a howling mob, who displayed secession flags (the Palmetto flag of South Carolina being conspicuous), and who emphasized their feelings by cheers for "Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy." They were