Sept. 12, 1861: A forgotten date in Maryland history

The following article is extracted from When Democracy Fell The Subjugation of Maryland During the U.S. Civil War, by Paul W. Callahan.

Sept. 12, 1861, began with the front page of the New York Herald dominated by a map that meticulously detailed the advance positions of the Confederate army in preparation for an attack upon the Capitol. The headline read: Over Three Hundred Thousand Armed Men — Scene of the Coming Decisive Conflict.

The Nation’s North was not caught off guard as they had been reading about the rebel forces’ impending attack for weeks. A series of internationally published articles detailed how the Maryland Legislature was cooperating with Confederate forces in that they would issue an ordinance of secession simultaneously with Confederate Gens. Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard crossing the Potomac to “liberate” Maryland and attack Washington.

The internationally disseminated articles detailed how secessionists had amassed in Accomac on the Eastern Shore and was to be led up the Delmarva by Gen. Tench Tilghman of Oxford. Tilghman’s rebels would support both the Legislature’s secession and the attack upon Washington by acting as a blocking force to isolate Washington.

The rebel plans had been uncovered by the War Department weeks prior and preparations had been made to foil the secessionist’s plot. On Sept. 11, Secretary of War Simon Cameron issued the order and the “modus operandi” was coordinated between Union Gens. George

McClellan and Nathaniel Banks.

Around midnight on Sept. 12, the arrests began and included 11 members of the Maryland Legislature, Baltimore Mayor George Brown and U.S. Congressman Henry May. Two editors of Baltimore’s “secessionist” papers, Thomas Hall, editor of The South and Frank Key Howard, editor of The Daily Exchange were also arrested.

Howard was the grandson of Francis Scott Key, author of our national anthem and thought it an “odd and unpleasant coincidence” that he was imprisoned at Fort McHenry on the 47th anniversary of when his grandfather immortalized the “land of the free.”

The arrests culminated on Sept. 17, when the Third Wisconsin arrested members of the legislature as they returned to Frederick to continue their legislative session. Many of those arrested joined Baltimore’s police chief and commissioners who were imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York.

The northern press immediately reported how these arrests “foiled” the Confederate attack against the Capitol in that they dared not cross the Potomac without Maryland first issuing a secession ordinance.

The press reported the discovery of ordinances of secession among the legislative members and that other evidence was found revealing their complicity in cooperating with the rebel army and their intent to take Maryland out of the Union was without question.

The Baltimore American quoted President Abraham Lincoln asserting that due to “public safety” the grounds of the arrests cannot be made public, but he assured the people of Maryland that “… in all cases the Government is in possession of tangible and unmistakable evidence, which will, when made public, be satisfactory to every loyal citizen.”

It has now been 162 years and that evidence has never been provided. There has been no ordinance of secession found, nor has it been shown that a rebel army had amassed in Accomac to be led by Tilghman.

There has been no evidence that the Maryland legislature was contemplating secession or were coordinating with the Confederate army in an attack upon the Capitol.

Many Legislative members imprisoned pointed to their Proclamation to the People of Maryland issued months prior, which claimed they had no “constitutional authority” to issue a secession ordinance. All the aforementioned internationally disseminated reports, originating from Washington, are assessed as “fake news” designed to control national and world opinion.

Modern historians have uncovered Lincoln’s compulsion in using the press to control public opinion and quoted Lincoln as stating “Public sentiment is everything, with it nothing can fail; against it nothing can succeed.” It has been uncovered that Lincoln secretly purchased a German newspaper to support his presidential campaign and wrote “ghost articles” that either supported his candidacy or criticized his opponents.

It is now known that the Third Wisconsin was instructed to arrest only members of the Maryland legislature that had voted “yay” on what became known as the “Wallis Report” and were ordered to destroy all copies.

The “Wallis Report” was named after Severn Teackle Wallis, chairman of the legislature’s Federal Relations Committee. The report was the legislature’s protest against constitutional violations committed by the federal government against Maryland and her citizens and called for an immediate cessation of all hostilities between the states.

The intent was to take their protest and calls for peace directly to the American public and ordered 25,000 copies to be printed and distributed throughout the nation.

The Lincoln administration viewed the legislature’s protests as more powerful than the men and arms Maryland could have mustered, even if Maryland had not been disarmed. By September 1861, with the cooperation of Gov. Thomas Holliday Hicks, federal forces had disarmed Maryland and deposited her weapons at Fort McHenry.

The state was occupied by federal troops and Baltimore was intimidated by the guns of Fort McHenry and Federal Hill trained upon her inhabitants. By written instructions, Lincoln had already directed his military to “bombard their cities” if Maryland took arms against the United States.

It now becomes clear that the imprisonment of the Baltimore Police commissioners was due to an important function that had been assigned them by the legislature — to conduct the elections in Baltimore.

With the commissioners replaced by a provost marshal, the city’s police and election judges quit in protest and were replaced by “unconditional” Unionists. Baltimore accounted for one-third of Maryland’s voters and the November election was for the majority of the legislature and governor.

With control of the elections, a policy was implemented to ensure the “disloyal” were discouraged. During the morning of the election, arrests were made of voters who attempted to vote a disloyal ticket or who showed indications of disloyalty. The police station’s jails were filled and word quickly spread keeping all who desired to vote other than the “unconditional” Union ticket away from the polls.

The suspension of constitutional liberties quickly expanded north and more than 14,000 civilians were imprisoned, 300 newspapers suppressed and all censored. Without a free press, the government became more brazen in manipulating elections of the border states.

During the Maryland elections of 1863, voters had to pass through an armed gauntlet of soldiers while holding colorcoded tickets that revealed which party they supported. Many were denied their vote and some were beaten and removed from the polls.

Election judges who dared to protest the interference were arrested, and non-resident Union soldiers voted freely. Even the “unconditional” Unionists who now governed Maryland protested against the violations of Maryland’s democracy.

“Fake news,” a divided nation and election fraud are not new to our modern times. Considering the challenges we see to our democracy today, we now more than ever, need to heed the lessons of Civil War Maryland —