April 19, 1861

The Pratt Street Riot

Baltimore, MD

Col. Edward Jones' 6th MA, and Col. William F. Small's PA militia (plus the BCPD under Marshal George P. Kane & the Mayor!)

Maryland Copperhead Democrats - Mobtown

* 1st bloodshed of the Civil War?

* 1st non-combatant casualty?

* mob first attacks and fatally injures PA Volunteer George Leisenring

"The First Union Dead, Ellsworth was killed in Alexandria, Va., on May 24, after the death here of Whitney, Needham, and Ladd." (Not sure why Taylor doesn't make this list but adding him and Leisenring adds up to the official count of 5 dead).

* William Clark, of Company C, 15th South Carolina Heavy Artillery Battalion, killed by troops returning fire on the crowd, technically making him the first Confederate casualty of the war.

"In 1861, as the Civil War began, Baltimore secessionists hoped to stop rail transportation to Washington and isolate the national capital. On April 19, the 6th Massachusetts Regiment arrived here at the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad’s President Street Station at 10 a.m. en-route with other troops to Washington to answer President Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers to counter the “rebellion.” Because of anti-Unionist demonstrations the day before, the 720 soldiers were ordered to load their weapons while horses pulled their cars to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Camden Station (locomotives were banned from the city streets).

Regimental commander Col. Edward Jones led the first of seven cars to Pratt Street and safely across the waterfront. The eighth car turned back after Southern sympathizers blocked the rails. From Camden Station, Jones sent orders to Capt. Albert S. Follansbee, commanding the remaining four companies here: “You will march to this place as quick as possible [and] follow the rail-road track.”

The Lowell City Regimental Band, baggage, and supply cars remained here after Follansbee left, awaiting their own instructions. When a pro-Confederate mob threw bricks at the musicians, they tore the stripes from their uniform trousers to be less recognizable as soldiers and fled on foot into the city.

Col. William F. Small’s 1,200-man 26th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Washington Brigade of Philadelphia) had also arrived with the 6th Massachusetts. As Small persuaded railroad officials to pull the train and troops out of the city to safety, the mob attacked, fatally injuring Pennsylvania Volunteer George Leisenring. The riot here lasted for more than two hours until Baltimore Police Marshal George P. Kane restored order."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=219590

The trail begins there where soldiers disembarked from trains that had come down from the North. They had to journey to the other train station for a transfer and did so on foot and via horse-drawn streetcars. That's when the mob attacked.

The museum is housed in the building that was the President Street Station, but the museum is closed.

"Capt. Albert S. Follansbee quickly ran into trouble as he led four companies of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment to Camden Station by President and Pratt Streets on April 19, 1861. Although part of the regiment had reached the terminal with little opposition, large pro-Confederate crowd gathered at President Street Station and waved a large Palmetto flag—a secession symbol—to taunt the remaining soldiers.

Follansbee had received orders to proceed to Camden Station on foot. As the 240 Massachusetts men marched up President Street, the mob threw brick and other objects at them. A few Southern sympathizers strutted at the head of the column, insulting the troops by forcing them to march behind the Palmetto flag. Others, taking up the rear, cheered for Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy, and shouted insults at the troops. As the soldiers reached the corner of Fawn Street here, rocks knocked down and injured two of them. Having endured enough, Lt. Leander Lynde stepped from the ranks, seized the Palmetto banner, and tore it from its staff. He then coolly tucked it under his coat and rejoined his company.

The only help for the beleaguered soldiers came in the form of a lone Baltimore policeman standing here. He demonstrated extraordinary courage by agreeing to help Follansbee's men reach Camden Station, more than a mile away."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=219588

"While Capt. Albert S. Follansbee waited at President Street Station with the last four companies of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, horses pulled several carloads of soldiers to Camden Station. Near the bridge here, however, an anchor and other objects on the tracks at Pratt and President Streets derailed the seventh car carrying Maj. Benjamin Watson’s company. Watson commandeered a passing team of horses and got the car back on the tracks, but a pro-Confederate mob attacked with stones and bricks, shattering windows and sending glass flying through the car.

The frightened driver quickly unhitched his horses and tried to blend into the crowd, but Watson brought him back at gunpoint to reattach the team and pull the car to safety as the soldiers lay on the floor. Watson ordered them to “ignore the assault and to lie still as they were not being fired upon.” After one of his men called out that his finger had been shot off, however, Watson ordered them to “rise up from the car floor and return fire.”

Back at President Street Station, Follansbee received orders to march his companies to Camden Station. Harassed by the mob along the way, the men reached the Jones Falls Bridge to find a barricade, including a cannon, blocking their path here. Had the gun been loaded, it might have raked the streets with deadly effect, but the soldiers simply climbed over the obstructions and continued their march."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=6209

"When Capt. Albert S. Follansbee's four companies of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment passed here en-route to Camden Station to change trains for Washington on April 19, 1861, a pro-Confederate mob attacked with rocks and bullets. As George Wilson Booth, a state militiaman who joined the rioters, later wrote,

A soldier, struck by a stone, fell almost at my feet, and as he fell, dropped his musket, which was immediately seized by Edward W. Beatty a port customs officer, who raised it to his shoulder and fired the first shot into the column.

As he fired he turned to the crowd and asked if anyone had a cartridge. I gave him one or two and showed him how to reload then betook myself to the protection of the first doorway thus escaping the bullets that were sweeping the street.

The rear riles faced about and delivered a volley into the crowd, who responded with pistol shots, stones, clubs, and other missiles. A perfect fusillade for the next few blocks was kept up between the troops and the outraged mob.

The volley killed 20-year-old William Clark, of Company C, 15th South Carolina Heavy Artillery Battalion, making him the first Confederate casualty of the war. Francis Xavier Ward was wounded as he tried to seize the regimental flag from Sgt. Timothy Crowly. Later, James Ryder Randall, a Marylander teaching in Louisiana expressed his sympathies in the secessionist poem, Maryland, My Maryland," which was the official state song until 2021.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=219683

I can't recommend eating at the Hard Rock.

For context, that's the view of Federal Hill from Pratt Street

And BONUS CONTENT: here's one of the cannons that was up there and is now in the B&O Museum

" Here, the violence reached a crescendo. Massachusetts Corps. Sumner H. Needham was struck in the head, fell to the pavement, and died. Earlier, he had told a comrade, "We shall have trouble today, and I shall never get out alive. Promise me, if I fall, that my body will be sent home."

Pvt. Luther C. Ladd was shot and killed, proclaiming "All Hail to the Stars & Stripes" as he collapsed. The mob shot Addison Whitney dead and beat Charles Taylor to death. The rest of the soldiers marched at the double-quick down Pratt Street, dragging their muskets between their legs and reloading as they ran.

Baltimore Mayor George W. Brown learned of the riot and hastened first to Camden Station, where all was calm. Then he heard shots coming from Pratt Street. He met Follansbee at the head of the marching column near here and told him, "You must defend yourselves." Brown picked up a dropped musket and brandished it, threatening the mob. Police Marshal George P. Kane and a company of policemen soon arrived to hold the crowd at bay as Kane shouted, "Keep back, men, or I shoot!"

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=219702

"Part of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment transferring to Camden Station to change trains from Washington reached the terminal safely aboard horse-drawn cars on April 19, 1861. Maj. Benjamin Watson’s Company K disembarked here at Howard Street, however, because a secessionist mob had torn up the track, and marched the final two blocks under a shower of bricks and bullets.

The mob attacked the regiment's last four companies, as Capt. Albert S. Follansbee marched them along Pratt Street, and killed several soldiers a few blocks east. As the troops reached this point, the mob renewed its assault, incited by a man waving a secessionist banner, and soldiers aboard the waiting train opened fire to protect their comrades.

When the crowd closed in, brandishing knives and guns, regimental commander Col. Edward Jones ordered the cars’ window blinds drawn to discourage further attacks. A final shot came from the train as it departed at 1:30 p.m., killing wealthy merchant Robert W. Davis on the Spring Garden side of Camden Station. Five soldiers died, and more than thirty-six were wounded. Among civilians, twelve were killed and many more wounded.

That night secessionists burned railroad bridges north of the city, and President Abraham Lincoln quickly suspended troop movements, but the pro-Confederate victory was short-lived. Within a month, Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler had occupied Federal Hill and promised to shell Baltimore if any more trouble occurred. The city remained quiet for the rest of the war."

Super Bonus Smalltimore: the Camden Station is also the site of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 -an ugly and brutal affair that was a big deal: the first national strike and one opposed by the state militia and then the feds (thanks for nothing Rutherford B. Hayes!). The shoot of bunch of citizens. The head cop at the time? Former Confederate Raider Harry Gilmore! Eff that guy!

The Camden Station Historical Marker has a sweet overview of the region's Civil War action:

"During the Civil War, Baltimore and its environs exemplified the divided loyalties of Maryland's residents. The city had commercial ties to the South as well as the North, and its secessionist sympathies erupted in violence on April 19, 1861, when pro-Confederate mobs attacked Massachusetts troops en route to Washington, D.C. Because of Baltimore's strategic importance, President Abraham Lincoln acted swiftly, stationing Federal troops in the city and jailing civilians suspected of disloyalty. Some area residents joined the Confederate army, but many others supported the Union. After the Emancipation Proclamation permitted African-American enlistment in 1863, U.S. Colored Troops regiments were recruited and trained in Baltimore and the vicinity. Naval vessels, such as USS Constellation, supported the Union war effort on the Chesapeake Bay and the high seas, countering the flow of contraband goods to the Confederacy. In 1863, during Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early's attack on the Washington defenses, Maj. Harry Gilmor's cavalry threatened Baltimore, burned nearby bridges, and raided supplies. Throughout the war, the city served as a hospital and prisoner-of-war assembly center. Political prisoners were detained at Fort McHenry, home of the "Star-Spangled Banner." Despite the city's divided loyalties, Baltimore remained a Union stronghold until the end of the war."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=37537

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=37538

USS Constellation: Flagship for the Anti-Slave Trade
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=6153

And we might as well talk about the USS Constellation now, as it is also a stop on the Baltimore riot trail.

"Though the Civil War was a period of great innovation for the navy, with widespread use of steam power and the innovation of ironclads there was still a place in the fleet for sailing ships. Built at the Gosport yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1854, USS Constellation was the flagship of the anti-slave trade African Squadron when the Civil War began in April 1861. The following month it made one of the first captures for the Union when it took the slaver Triton of Charleston, South Carolina. After briefly being recalled to American waters, Constellation was ordered to the Mediterranean where it fulfilled a variety of missions, including protecting American commerce from Confederate raiders. The U.S. Navy's role in the Civil War is often overlooked in favor of the armies, but the navy was crucial to achieving a Union victory. Naval vessels actively blockaded the Southern coastline, strangling the Confederacy's trade, patrolled for commerce raiders, and enabled the army to conduct effective amphibious operations.

[sidebar]
Powder monkey Aspinwall Fuller

Boys such as Aspinwall Fuller were a common sight aboard U.S. Navy vessels during the Civil War. A native of New York, the 13--year-old Fuller enlisted here in Baltimore in 1864, and was assigned to USS New Hampshire. Throughout the war, the Navy recruited 13- to 18-year-olds to serve at sea as ship's boys. These young sailors were entrusted with the important job of bringing the powder charges to guns during combat, and earned the nickname "powder monkeys." During its Civil War cruise, Constellation had 12 of these brave teenagers as part of its crew.

I'm sorry I missed this!

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https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=2429

Church Home and Hospital

“I am a Massachusetts woman”

Church Home and Hospital, formerly Washington Medical college, was where Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, and where many doctors were trained who served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. On April 19, 1861, Adeline Blanchard Tyler, Episcopal Church deaconess and nursing instructor, was working here when a friend summoned her to the Holliday Street police station. The Baltimore Riot had just occurred and wounded 6th Massachusetts Infantry soldiers had been taken there. Tyler was refused entry until she said, “I am a Massachusetts woman seeking to do good to the citizens of my own state. If not allowed to do so, I must send a telegram to Governor Andrews informing him that my request has been denied.” The police then admitted her.

Tyler found two soldiers dead and four wounded. Using a covered furniture wagon so the secessionist crowd could not see the soldiers, she brought the two most seriously injured here. After surgeons treated them, Tyler tended to them herself. In a month they had recovered enough to return to Massachusetts, where the legislature passed a resolution of appreciation for her services.

Later, Tyler helped establish a hospital in the National Hotel near Camden Station but was asked to leave when she insisted that Confederate and Union wounded receive the same care. She then served at the U.S. General Hospital in Chester, Pennsylvania, and organized nurses at a hospital at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=218178

"This structure, now the east building of Church Hospital, was erected in 1836, to house the Washington Medical College. Edgar Allan Poe, author, and poet, was brought here, ill and semi-conscious, on October 3, 1849 and died four days later. In 1857, the building was purchased by Church Home and Infirmary, which was renamed Church Home and Hospital in 1943."

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Also nearby and relevant...

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=251844

"Oakland Manor

Story of Two Sides

During the war, the Oakland farm was home to participants on each side. George R. Gaither, a prosperous Baltimore merchant, purchased the property including the house (completed 1811) in 1838. His son, George R. Gaither; Jr, served as captain of a local militia unit, the Howard Dragoons (mounted infantrymen). Most of the Dragoons were local landed gentry and slave owners. They trained here to learn the intricate movements of mounted combat and sometimes staged parades for the public.

After the Baltimore Riot of April 19, 1861, the Howard Dragoons helped keep the peace there, but Gaither and most of his men decided to join the Confederate army. In May they rode to Leesburg, Virginia. The unit was periodically reassigned as Co. K, 1st Virginia Cavalry; Co. M, 1st Maryland Cavalry; and Co. K, 2nd Maryland Cavalry. Gaither was captured at Manassas Junction on August 27, 1862, and exchanged. He resigned in 1863, suffering from hemorrhoids, a common affliction among cavalrymen. On July 15, 1865, he signed the oath of allegiance.

Brothers Moses, William, and Joseph Shipley were slaves who labored here and on neighboring farms. In 1863, they enlisted in the 9th U.S. Colored Troops (LTSCT), a regiment recruited in Maryland. William Shipley was killed at Deep Bottom near Richmond, Virginia, in August 1864. Moses Shipley survived the war. Joseph Shipley survived but suffered—like many thousands of veterans—from what is today called post-traumatic stress disorder. Increasingly confused and disoriented, he sometimes marched and shouted about the war in public. Family members committed him to successive mental institutions from late in the 1860s until his death in 1928."