Grimed with blood and
dirt the troops reached Washington at five o'clock in the afternoon, the
first armed rescuers of the Capital. They were quartered in the
magnificent Senate Chamber on the Capitol Hill.
The President was immediately confronted by the gravest crisis. The
first blood had stained the soil of the only Slave State, which lay
between Washington and the loyal North. If Maryland should join the
Confederacy it would be impossible to hold the Capital. The city would
be surrounded and isolated in hostile territory.
From the first he had believed that the only conceivable way to save the
Union was to prevent the Border Slave States of Maryland, Kentucky and
Missouri from joining the South. For the moment it seemed that Maryland
was lost, and with it the Capital of the Nation. A storm of fury swept
through the city of Baltimore and the whole State over the killing of
her unarmed citizens by the "Abolition" troops from Massachusetts!
The Mayor of Baltimore sent a committee to the President who declared in
the most solemn tones:
"It is not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless
they fight their way at every step."
And to make sure that the attempt would not be repeated he burned the
railroad bridges connecting the North and cut every telegraph wire
completely isolating the Capital.
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