Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/33

Rh $500,000 for the defense of the city, to be used at the discretion of the mayor. The banks furnished the money in two hours. Capt Wilson Carey Nicholas, with the Garrison Forest Rangers—afterward Company G., First Maryland regiment, seized the United States arsenal at Pikesville, where there was a deposit of antiquated arms and a considerable supply of gunpowder. All the city companies of militia were under arms in their armories. Col. Benjamin Huger, of South Carolina, who had been in command at Pikesville for some years, but who had just resigned from the army of the United States, was made colonel of the Fifty-third regiment, Maryland militia, composed of the Independent Grays and the six companies of the Maryland Guard. The command was admirably instructed, drilled and officered, and a majority of its officers and men afterward served in the army of the Confederate States. The mayor issued a notice calling on all citizens who had arms to deposit them with the commissioner of police, to be used in the defense of the city, and upon all who were willing to enroll themselves for military service. Under this call over fifteen thousand volunteers were enrolled and partly organized on Saturday, the 20th, and Col. Isaac R. Trimble was assigned to command them. The railroad stations and State tobacco warehouses were used for drill rooms. On Saturday night the bridges on the railroads leaving north from Baltimore were burnt or disabled by a detachment of police and of the Maryland Guard, acting under the orders of Governor Hicks. The governor was in Baltimore during the attack on the troops and was carried off his feet and out of his head by the furor of the hour. He gave the order to burn the bridges. He afterward strenuously denied giving it, but he gave it.

On Sunday morning, April 21st, the Howard County Dragoons, Capt. George R. Earltree, came in, and by the boat two companies from Easton, and news came that the companies from Harford, Cecil, Carroll and Prince