and Secessionists assailed them with paving-stones,
brickbats, and pistol-shots. The mayor and the marshal of the police
force performed fairly their official duty, but were far from quelling
the riot. The troops, therefore, thrown on their own resources,
justifiably fired upon their assailants. The result of the conflict was
that 4 soldiers were killed and 36 were wounded, and of the rioters 12
were killed, and the number of wounded could not be ascertained. The
troops reached Washington at five o'clock in the afternoon, the first
armed rescuers of the capital; their presence brought a comforting
sense of relief, and they were quartered in the senate chamber itself.

* * * * *

What would be the effect of the proclamation, of the mustering of troops
in the capital, and of the bloodshed at Baltimore upon the slave States
which still remained in the Union, was a problem of immeasurable
importance. The President, who had been obliged to take the
responsibility of precipitating the crisis in these States, appreciated
more accurately than any one else the magnitude of the stake involved in
their allegiance. He watched them with the deepest anxiety, and brought
the utmost care and tact of his nature to the task of influencing them.
The geographical position of Maryland, separating the District of
Columbia from the loyal North, made it of the first consequence. The
situation there, precarious at best, seemed to be rendered actually
hopeless by what had occurred. A tempest of uncontrollable rage whirled
away the people and prostrated all Union feeling. Mayor Brown admits
that "for some days it looked very much as if Baltimore had taken her
stand decisively with the South;" and this was putting it mildly, when
the Secessionist Marshal Kane was telegraphing: "Streets red with
Maryland blood. Send express over the mountains of Maryland and Virginia
for the riflemen to come without delay." Governor Hicks was opposed to
secession, but he was shaken like a reed by this violent blast. Later
on this same April 19, Mayor Brown sent three gentlemen to President
Lincoln, bearing a letter from himself, in which he said that it was
"not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless they
fight their way at every step." That night he caused the northward
railroad bridges to be burned and disabled; and soon afterward the
telegraph wires were cut.

The President met the emergency with coolness an