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| Federal Hill in Baltimore, 1861 |
Baltimore Mayor George William Brown recalled waiting on the platform to shake President-elect
Abraham Lincoln’s hand to welcome him to the city during his inaugural journey.
Little did he know Lincoln had abandoned the car in Harrisburg and secretly
made his way to the capital city under cover of darkness.
He took it as a personal insult, as did the citizens of
Baltimore. The implication that there was a plot to kill Lincoln in their city
made the townspeople feel like criminals put under a magnifying glass.
Because Lincoln snuck into the town after dark, it left a
bitter taste in their mouths, similar to his sending troops through the heart
of the city without alerting them.
If “Old Abe” had just come into town and shaken hands as
planned, Brown was sure everything would have worked out okay. If the army had
informed city officials about the troop movements, proper precautions could
have been taken to ensure their safety.
The “real problem” was the government’s lack of
communication.
The day before the Pratt Street Riot, on April 18, two
companies of United States Artillery commanded by Major Pemberton and four
militia companies arrived on the North Central Railroad. They disembarked from
their cars at Bolton Station in North Baltimore shortly after 2 p.m.
Most of the soldiers were unarmed and without uniforms. They
marched over a mile through the streets, making their way to Washington Street
Station.
Brown said the regular soldiers passed unmolested, but the
militia was harassed and threatened mercilessly. If it had not been for
Marshall Kane and the Baltimore police force, violence would surely have
erupted.
The difference between the two days was that the army
notified city officials on April 18 that the troops were coming. Because they
received notice the soldiers were coming, the police force was on hand to
ensure the soldier’s safety.
The circumstances behind the Pratt Street Riot of April 19
were entirely different. The city did not receive notice that the troops were
coming until a half-hour before their arrival. Because of this, the police
force was unprepared to protect the soldiers.
In hindsight, it is difficult to say what the correct move
should have been. The evidence leaves little doubt that violence lurked at
every turn on the streets of Baltimore.
That did not surprise the soldiers involved in the incident.
Colonel Edward Jones woke his men early on April 18 to
prepare them for what lay ahead.
He said: “You will
undoubtedly be insulted, abused, and perhaps assaulted, to which you must pay
no attention whatever, but march with your faces square to the front, and pay
no attention to the mob, even if they throw stones, bricks, or other missiles;
but if you are fired upon, and any one of you is hit, your officers will order
you to fire. Do not fire into any promiscuous crowds, but select any man, and
be sure you drop him.”
The next morning, before leaving the train, the soldiers
capped and loaded their muskets. Come hell or high water, they were ready for
whatever adventure life had in store for them. Or as prepared as any man could
be when faced with a mob of ten thousand or more.
The Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was among the first to
answer Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops after the attack on Fort
Sumter.
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| Baltimore Mayor George William Brown |
They left Boston on the evening of April 17 and arrived in New York City the next morning. The next night, they arrived in Philadelphia. The Stars and Stripes flew over the housetops not too far away in Havre De Grace. Young girls waved their handkerchiefs from nearby rooftops. Citizens met the soldiers at each stop and offered them coffee and refreshments. Children waved mini-flags, and crowds cheered the Union.
And yet, for all the celebrations, evil lurked close by.
During the trip, John Brady of Company H was taken insane (most likely a case
of jittery nerves). Colonel Jones left him with J. C. Buck in Delanco, N.J.
The train (all 31 to 35 cars, depending on which account you
believe) chugged into Baltimore shortly before noon on April 19.
What a difference a few hours of travel can make.
The streets were peaceful when the train arrived. Then, as
per standard operating procedure in Baltimore, the railroad cars were unhitched
from the train and connected to teams of horses who would pull them through the
city streets along the trolley tracks.
Colonel Jones had intended to march his men through the
streets, a mile and a half from President Street Station to the Camden Station
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. But unfortunately, by the time he learned
it was a custom in the city to pull the cars through the streets; it was too
late to change things.
The first cars were off and on their way.
As the first car reached Gay and Pratt Street, the soldiers
saw large mobs milling about in the streets. Further ahead, a road crew worked
on the tracks. Off to the sides lay piles of rock and stone.
Rioters grabbed rocks, and paving stones, then hurled them at
the cars. Windows broke. Soldiers screamed as the rocks pounded their heads and
arms.
Six cars raced by as the crowd threw stones and chanted.
“Hurray for the South!” “Hurray for Jefferson Davis!” “Death to the Black
Republicans!”
Despite the breaking windows and the screams of their wounded
comrades, the soldiers resisted the urge to fire.
The seventh car was not as lucky.
When the car reached Pratt Street, the crowd had placed
barricades across the tracks.
Major Watson commanded the troops in the seventh car.
Unfortunately, they were attacked almost immediately after they pulled out of
the President Street Depot.
Baltimore citizens attacking troop train on Pratt Street
The crowd hurled clubs, paving stones, and other missiles. Windows tinkled and burst. Chunks of rock rattled off the sides of the car.
The men were desperate to fire. Watson refused to give the
order.
No one was to fire unless attacked by firearms.
Moments later, a shot rang out. A soldier held up a bloody
stump that used to be his thumb.
Watson ordered the men to lie on the floor. Load. And fire
through the windows.
Three times the car was thrown off the track or stopped by
obstacles. Each time, the men piled out while missiles flew all about them.
They set the car back on the track and jumped back in,
repeating the procedure as needed.
Further back, the soldiers were “assailed by a mob, who
hurled stones, bricks, and everything else they could get at them, breaking the
windows of the cars and injuring the soldiers, many of whom had their heads cut
and down whose faces the blood flowed freely.”
Many unarmed soldiers found themselves in a battle as hot as
any they would later face during the war.
A newspaper report said, “When the remaining soldiers fled
the cars, they were chased by a mob throwing stones. When that didn’t finish
the job, the hoards broke into a hardware store, ‘seized hatchets, and ‘hurled’
them at the fleeing soldiers.”
At the corner of South and Bath Street, someone fired a
pistol. The troops in the rear wheeled and fired.
“The guns of the soldiers that had fallen wounded were seized
and fired upon the ranks with fatal effects….”
The soldiers made a stand at Calvert Street by firing into
the crowd. Two or three rioters fell.
The soldiers raced on.
Another sizeable crowd waited for them at Howard Street.
The crowd hurled stones, but no guns were fired. Instead, the
soldiers hurried down Howard Street to the safety of the depot.
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| Washington, D.C. in 1861 |
Marshal Kane and Mayor Brown were at Camden Street Station when the troops arrived in Baltimore. As the Federal troops left for Washington Station, rumors flew around that the mob planned to tear up the tracks to prevent the soldiers from passing.
Kane sent officers racing ahead as far as Relay House to
protect the tracks.
Mayor Brown ran up the street in search of the troops.
At Pratt Street, near Smith’s Wharf, the mob had torn up
tracks and dragged anchors across them to block the troop’s progress. Brown
said he ordered Sergeant McComas of the Baltimore police to remove the anchors.
The Massachusetts troops had crossed the bridge and were
advancing at him in double-quick time.
Captain Follansbee led the soldiers (220 of them). All around
them, they could hear oaths, screams, and gunshots. The odds were definitely
against them. Follansbee did not mince words. He gave the command to “fire at
will.”
Follansbee’s men had a tough time of it.
They scaled the barricades at the Pratt Street Bridge. The
crowd chased after them, cheering “Jeff Davis” and “South Carolina and the
South.” Another suggested the mob was going to “dig your graves.”
Pistol shots rang out from behind windows, doors, and
storefronts.
Follansbee said before they began their march, the crowd came
upon them waving a secession flag. They told them they would never march
through the city, and “they would kill every white nigger of us before we reach
the other depot.”
“They [the soldiers] were firing wildly, sometimes backward,
over their shoulders,” said Mayor Brown. “So rapid was their march that they
could not stop to take aim.”
In retrospect, Brown did not remember the crowd being all
that large. There was a lot of shouting. Stones flew through the air. An
occasional pistol shot could be heard. But nothing all that bad.
Brown ran up to Follansbee and said, “I am the mayor of
Baltimore.”
He fell in beside him.
The crowd grew thicker and more violent as they continued to
march forward.
“The mob grew bolder. Stones flew thick and fast. Rioters
rushed at the soldiers and attempted to snatch their muskets.”
One unlucky soldier got killed with his own gun.
Brown recalled, “It was impossible for the troops to
discriminate between the rioters and the bystanders.” But, as usually happens
in such situations, he was pretty sure the bystanders got the worst of it.
A paper reported that Mayor Brown and Henry May led the
soldiers through the crowd. “Some say Mayor Brown ordered the troops to fire on
the mob.” Another soldier said Mr. May told them to “take care of themselves.”
One report said that within minutes of joining the troops,
Brown grabbed a musket from one soldier and shot down a man in the mob. Then a
policeman took down another member of the crowd with his revolver.
Brown said it never happened. Instead, he left the soldiers
because his presence was not making any difference.
Yes. The mayor had a smoking gun in his hands. But, no. He
did not shoot anyone. And, to his knowledge, no police officer killed a member
of the mob.
That was just a bunch of stories.
As Brown left the soldiers, Marshal Kane and fifty policemen
arrived from the direction of Camden Station. They rushed to the rear of the
troops and formed a line with revolvers drawn.
From Gay Street to South Street, the soldiers faced a war
zone. “Large paving stones were hurled into the ranks from every direction.”
Soldiers fired many rounds at Gay Street, then continued to run to Commerce
Street. Again, a shower of stones knocked many of them down.
“They then wheeled and fired some twenty shots.”
Four townspeople fell. Two of them died.
Farther along, at the corner of Fawn Street, flying stones
knocked two soldiers down. A policeman recalled hearing gunshots near the Pratt
Street Bridge. He said it came from a soldier.
The implication was that the soldiers started the killing —
not the rioters.
The crowd grew thicker as they neared Gray Street. Soldiers
fired, and several members of the mob fell—dead or wounded.
Soldiers running the gauntlet during Baltimore Riots
The crowd broke and scattered in search of weapons. The
firing continued from Frederick Street to South Street.
Perhaps the band got the worst of it.
They were unarmed and unable to defend themselves. When the
mob turned its attention to the cars they were in, the band members jumped
through the doors and windows and spread out in all directions.
Musician A. S. Young said the police watched them and
laughed. Finally, one policeman advised him to “run like the devil,” and he
did.
After they had run a half-mile, they joined a party of German
and Irish women who took them in and sheltered and fed them. The police
eventually helped them to the depot and freedom.
Another musician, Victor Lorendo, age 17, crawled under the
train and escaped into the country. Like many soldiers, he tore the stripes
from his pant legs, so it was not so easy to recognize that he was a soldier.
He walked to Philadelphia and then Boston to make his escape.
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