The Baltimore Massacre
Baltimore, MD
Forward
History has a way of repeating itself. By 1861, George Templeton Strong said,
“So short lived was the American Union that those who saw it rise may live to see it fall.”
After the fall of Ft. Sumter, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. Soldiers from loyal states were sent to protect Washington. To get there, however, they had to be transported by rail through Baltimore.
Civil Strife Keeps Civil Hands Unclean
There was a lot of pro-Southern sentiment in Baltimore. Like Bostonians 86 years earlier, Baltimorians saw federal troops as occupiers.
Soldiers from Pennsylvannia and Massachusetts, commanded by Colonel Pemberton, were attacked by enraged civilians as they were changing trains for Washington. Southern sympathies ran high in Baltimore. The attack consisted of rocks and bricks being thrown as well as shots. Lethal force was used in response. Like the British Army three generations before, the Union Army also had a good case for self-defense.
Conclusion
When the day was done, three soldiers and eight civilians lay dead. Another twenty four soldiers and an unknown number of civilians lay wounded. In a reenactment of 1775, the first blood of the American Civil War was shed by Massachusetts men.
The Maryland state legislature never got to practice democracy by voting on secession; Lincoln had them all arrested. This is evidence that if the vote had gone through, Maryland would have joined the Confederacy.
In a strange contrast to Boston, there are no walking tours or markers for the incident. The city doesn’t have actors dressed up in nineteenth century costume. Students of history, seeking truth and enlightenment, are left to wonder why.
