Baltimore and The Nineteenth of April, 1861 Part 8

Col. Scharf, in his "History of Maryland," Volume III, says: "It was originally intended that they (the prisoners) should be confined in the fort at the Dry Tortugas, but as there was no fit steamer in Hampton Roads to make the voyage, the programme was changed."[15]

[Footnote 15: See also the "Chronicles of Baltimore" by the same author.]

The apprehension that the Legislature intended to pa.s.s an act of secession, as intimated by Secretary Cameron, was, in view of the position in which the State was placed, and the whole condition of affairs, so absurd that it is difficult to believe that he seriously entertained it. The blow was no doubt, however, intended to strike with terror the opponents of the war, and was one of the effective means resorted to by the Government to obtain, as it soon did, entire control of the State.

As the events of the 19th of April had occurred nearly five months previously, and I was endeavoring to perform my duties as mayor, in obedience to law, without giving offense to either the civil or military authorities of the Government, the only apparent reason for my arrest grew out of a difficulty in regard to the payment of the police appointed by General Banks. In July a law had been pa.s.sed by Congress appropriating one hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of such payment, but it was plain that a similar expenditure would not long be tolerated by Congress. In this emergency an intimation came to me indirectly from Secretary Seward, through a common acquaintance, that I was expected to pay the Government police out of the funds appropriated by law for the city police. I replied that any such payment would be illegal and was not within my power.

Soon afterwards I received the following letter from General Dix, which I insert, together with the correspondence which followed:

"HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA, "BALTIMORE, MD., _September 8, 1861_.

"TO HON. GEO. WM. BROWN, _Mayor of the City of Baltimore_.

"_Sir_:--Reasons of state, which I deem imperative, demand that the payment of compensation to the members of the old city police, who were, by a resolution of the Board of Police Commissioners, dated the 27th of Jane last, declared 'off duty,'

and whose places were filled in pursuance of an order of Major-General Banks of the same date, should cease. I therefore direct, by virtue of the authority vested in me as commanding officer of the military forces of the United States in Baltimore and its vicinity, that no further payment be made to them.

"Independently of all other considerations, the continued compensation of a body of men who have been suspended in their functions by the order of the Government, is calculated to bring its authority into disrespect; and the extraction from the citizens of Baltimore by taxation, in a time of general depression and embarra.s.sment, of a sum amounting to several hundred thousand dollars a year for the payment of nominal officials who render it no service, cannot fail by creating widespread dissatisfaction to disturb the quietude of the city, which I am most anxious to preserve.

"I feel a.s.sured that the payment would have been voluntarily discontinued by yourself, as a violation of the principle on which all compensation is bestowed--as a remuneration for an equivalent service actually performed--had you not considered yourself bound by existing laws to make it.

"This order will relieve you from the embarra.s.sment, and I do not doubt that it will be complied with.

"I am, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "JOHN A. DIX, "_Major-General Commanding_."

"MAYOR'S OFFICE, CITY HALL, "BALTIMORE, _September 5, 1861_.

"Major-General JOHN A. DIX, _Baltimore, Md._

"_Sir_:--I was not in town yesterday, and did not receive until this morning your letter of the 3d inst. ordering that no further payment be made to the members of the city police.

"The payments have been made heretofore in pursuance of the laws of the State, under the advice of the City Counsellor, by the Register, the Comptroller and myself.

"Without entering into a discussion of the considerations which you have deemed sufficient to justify this proceeding, I feel it to be my duty to enter my protest against this interference, by military authority, with the exercise of powers lawfully committed by the State of Maryland to the officers of the city corporation; but it is nevertheless not the intention of the city authorities to offer resistance to the order which you have issued, and I shall therefore give public notice to the officers and men of the city police that no further payments may be expected by them.

"There is an arrearage of pay of two weeks due to the force, and the men have by the law and rules of the board been prevented from engaging in any other business or occupation. Most of them have families, who are entirely dependent for support on the pay received.

"I do not understand your order as meaning to prohibit the payment of this arrearage, and shall therefore proceed to make it, unless prevented by your further order.

"I am, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "GEO. WM. BROWN, "_Mayor of Baltimore_."

"HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA, "BALTIMORE, MD., _September 9, 1861_.

"HON. GEO. WM. BROWN, _Mayor of the City of Baltimore_.

"_Sir_:--Your letter of the 5th inst. was duly received. I cannot, without acquiescing in the violation of a principle, a.s.sent to the payment of an arrearage to the members of the old city police, as suggested in the closing paragraph of your letter.

"It was the intention of my letter to prohibit any payment to them subsequently to the day on which it was written.

"You will please, therefore, to consider this as the 'further order' referred to by you.

"I am, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "JOHN A. DIX, "_Major-General Commanding_."

"MAYOR'S OFFICE, CITY HALL, "BALTIMORE, _September 11, 1861_.

"Major-General JOHN A. DIX, Baltimore.

"_Sir_:--I did not come to town yesterday until the afternoon, and then ascertained that my letters had been sent out to my country residence, where, on my return last evening, I found yours of the 9th, in reply to mine of the 5th instant, awaiting me. It had been left at the mayor's office yesterday morning.

"Before leaving the mayor's office, about three o'clock P. M. on the 9th instant, and not having received any reply from you, I had signed a check for the payment of arrears due the police, and the money was on the same day drawn out of the bank and handed over to the proper officers, and nearly the entire amount was by them paid to the police force before the receipt of your letter.

"The suggestion in your letter as to the 'violation of a principle' requires me to add that I recognize in the action of the Government of the United States in the matter in question nothing but the a.s.sertion of superior force.

"Out of regard to the great interests committed to my charge as chief magistrate of the city, I have yielded to that force, and do not feel it necessary to enter into any discussion of the principles upon which the Government sees fit to exercise it.

"Very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "GEO. WM. BROWN, "_Mayor_."

The reasons which General Dix a.s.signed for prohibiting me from paying the arrearages due the police present a curious combination. First, there were reasons of State; next, the respect due to the Government; third, his concern for the taxpayers of Baltimore; fourth, the danger to the quiet of the city which he apprehended might arise from the payment; and, finally, there was a principle which he must protect from violation, but what that principle was he did not state.

A striking commentary on these reasons was furnished on the 11th of December, 1863, by a decision of the Court of Appeals of Maryland in the case of the Mayor, etc., of Baltimore _vs._ Charles Howard and others, reported in 20th Maryland Rep., p. 335. The question was whether the interference by the Government of the United States with the Board of Police and police force established by law in the city of Baltimore was without authority of law and did in any manner affect or impair the rights or invalidate the acts of the board. The court held that, though the board was displaced by a force to which they yielded and could not resist, their power and rights under their organization were still preserved, and that they were amenable for any dereliction of official duty, except in so far as they were excused by uncontrollable events. And the court decided that Mr. Hinks, one of the police commissioners, whose case was alone before the court, was ent.i.tled to his salary, which had accrued after the board was so displaced.

Subsequently, after the close of the war, the Legislature of the State pa.s.sed an act for the payment of all arrearages due to the men of the police subsequent to their displacement by the Government of the United States and until their discharge by the Government of the State.

It will be perceived that General Dix delayed replying to my letter of the 5th of September until the 9th; that his reply was not left at the mayor's office until the tenth, and that in the meantime, on the afternoon of the 9th, after waiting for his reply for four days, I paid the arrears due the police, as I had good reason to suppose he intended I should.

A friend of mine, a lawyer of Baltimore, and a p.r.o.nounced Union man, has, since then, informed me that General Dix showed him my letter of the 5th before my arrest; that my friend asked him whether he had replied to it, and the General replied he had not. My friend answered that he thought a reply was due to me. From all this it does not seem uncharitable to believe that the purpose of General Dix was to put me in the false position of appearing to disobey his order and thus to furnish an excuse for my imprisonment. This lasted until the 27th of November, 1862, a short time after my term of office had expired, when there was a sudden and unexpected release of all the State prisoners in Fort Warren, where we were then confined.

On the 26th of November, 1862, Colonel Justin Dimick, commanding at Fort Warren, received the following telegraphic order from the Adjutant-General's Office, Was.h.i.+ngton: "The Secretary of War directs that you release all the Maryland State prisoners, also any other State prisoners that may be in your custody, and report to this office."

In pursuance of this order, Colonel Dimick on the following day released from Fort Warren the following State prisoners, without imposing any condition upon them whatever: Severn Teackle Wallis, Henry M. Warfield, William G. Harrison, T. Parkin Scott, ex-members of the Maryland Legislature from Baltimore; George William Brown, ex-Mayor of Baltimore; Charles Howard and William H. Gatch.e.l.l, ex-Police Commissioners; George P. Kane, ex-Marshal of Police; Frank Key Howard, one of the editors of the Baltimore _Exchange_; Thomas W.

Hall, editor of the Baltimore _South_; Robert Hull, merchant, of Baltimore; Dr. Charles Macgill, of Hagerstown; William H. Winder, of Philadelphia; and B. L. Cutter, of Ma.s.sachusetts.

General Wool, then in command in Baltimore, issued an order declaring that thereafter no person should be arrested within the limits of the Department except by his order, and in all such cases the charges against the accused party were to be sworn to before a justice of the peace.

As it was intimated that these gentlemen had entered into some engagement as the condition of their release, Mr. Wallis, while in New York on his return home, took occasion to address a letter on the subject to the editor of the New York _World_, in which he said: "No condition whatever was sought to be imposed, and none would have been accepted, as the Secretary of War well knew. Speaking of my fellow-prisoners from Maryland, I have a right to say that they maintained to the last the principle which they a.s.serted from the first--namely, that, if charged with crime, they were ent.i.tled to be charged, held and tried in due form of law and not otherwise; and that, in the absence of lawful accusation and process, it was their right to be discharged without terms or conditions of any sort, and they would submit to none."

Many of our fellow-prisoners were from necessity not able to take this stand. There were no charges against them, but there were imperative duties which required their presence at home, and when the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton adopted the policy of offering liberty to those who would consent to take an oath of allegiance prepared for the occasion, they had been compelled to accept it.

Before this, in December, 1861, the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton, on application of friends, had granted me a parole for thirty days, that I might attend to some important private business, and for that time I stayed with kind relatives, under the terms of the parole, in Boston.

The following correspondence, which then took place, will show the position which I maintained:

"BOSTON, _January 4, 1862_.

"MARSHAL KEYS, _Boston_.

"_Sir_:--I called twice to see you during this week, and in your absence had an understanding with your deputy that I was to surrender myself to you this morning, on the expiration of my parole, in time to be conveyed to Fort Warren, and I have accordingly done so.