woman who had welcomed them, immediately caught up their fallen comrade, and carried him in her arms up the stairs.

"You are perfectly safe here,, boys," said the brave woman, who directly proceeded to wash and bind up their wounds.

After having done this, she procured them food, and then told them to strip off their uniforms and put on the clothes she had brought them, a motley assortment of baize jackets, ragged coats, and old trowsers. Thus equipped, they were enabled to go out in search of their companions, without danger of attack from the mob, which had given them so rough a reception.

They then learned the particulars of the attack upon the soldiers, and of their escape, and saw lying at the station the two men who had been killed, and the others who had been wounded. On going back to the house where they had been so humanely treated, they found that their clothes had been carefully tied up, and with their battered instruments, had been sent to the depot of the Philadelphia railroad, where they were advised to go themselves. They did not long hesi tate, but started in the next train, and arrived at Philadelphia just in time to meet the Eighth regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers.

Contrast this generous act with that of an old gray-haired man, aged more than sixty-five years, who saw one of the Massachusetts soldiers in the act of levelling his musket, when he rushed in his shirt sleeves from his shop, disarmed the man by main force, and killed him with the bayonet-and you have some idea of the conflicting elements which composed the Baltimore riot.

Increasing by what it had fed on, the lawless spirit ran still more high; its black waves rolled and surged, and no power could be found strong enough to control them. The demon spirit that ran riot during the days of Robespierre, and the fiendish hours of the "Reign of Terror," appeared in the streets of Baltimore, and foul lips sang rebellious songs. Secession and murder mingling together in rude.

discord.

The rulers were impotent to check the storm, or control the whirlwind. The people were for the time masters-the authorities helpless. On this memorable 19th of April, the writer of these pages was on her way from Washington to New York. The train in which she travelled was loaded down with persons going northward, for Washington was not considered a safe place to sojourn in that week, especially for ladies.

About ten miles from Baltimore we met the train which bore the Sixth Massachusetts regiment from the scene of its late encounter. Both trains slackened speed, and instantly it flew like wildfire along the cars that there had been riot and bloodshed in Baltimore, and the brave fel

town.

lows we had passed had been attacked in their passage through the The news was received with great excitement, that grew more and more intense until our engine thundered into the depot. The fighting was over, but a mob of morose and cruel-looking men, with a few black women and children, still hung around the building, and we passed out through a lane of scowling faces.

The horse railroad had been torn up and so blockaded that there was no hopes of reaching the Philadelphia cars by that way. With diffi culty we procured a carriage and were drawn over the scene of conflict. The railroad was almost obliterated; piles of lumber, fifteen feet high, were heaped upon it. Immense anchors lay across it, forming an iron barricade. Every window along the line was crowded with eager, scared faces, mostly black, and those that were white, evidently of the lowest order.

It became impossible to pass along the railroad, for it was completely blocked up. We turned into a side street, and at last took our places in the Philadelphia train. Here two or three men in uniform entered the cars, and after the train started they were seen talking earnestly with the conductor near our seat. It seemed that the Pennsylvania regiment had been scattered, and while a train had returned toward Philadelphia with the larger portion of the men, some twenty-five or thirty were grouped on the wayside, some miles from the city, hoping that our train would take them in.

The conductor was inexorable. His orders were to proceed direct— besides, he had no room, every seat was crowded. This was true; but all the gentlemen, among whom was Senator Wilkinson, of Minnesota, and several ladies that sat within hearing, pleaded that the men should be taken in, and all offered to surrender their own seats. But it was of no avail-the conductor had his orders.

A few minutes after the officers had retreated we passed a platform on the wayside on which these unlucky soldiers were grouped, in anxious expectation that the train would stop, but it went steadily by, leaving the most disappointed and gloomy faces behind that one often looks upon.

We afterwards learned that these poor fellows wandered around the country for three days, and many of them came back to Philadelphia on foot.

If they were sad at being left, those in the cars were both sorrowful and indignant that they had not been taken up. It seemed to them an act of wanton cruelty; and one of the company, at least, has not yet been able to change her opinion on the subject.

At Wilmington we passed the town in which were the companions of these deserted men. Their train had paused in the town, which we found one blaze of excitement. As the news spread, cheer after cheer arose for

P

the stars and stripes, the soldiers, the government, and everything else around which a patriotic cry could centre, rang up from the streets. The people were fairly wild when they saw that the soldiers were driven back.

In every town and at every depot this wild spirit of indignation increased as we advanced. Philadelphia was full of armed men; regiments were rushing to the arsenals, groups of men talked eagerly in the streets-martial music sounded near the Continental Hotel at intervals all night. The city was one scene of wild commotion. In the morning the Seventh New York regiment came in. The day before they had left the Empire City one blaze of star-spangled flags and in a tumult of patriotic enthusiasm. That morning they were hailed in Philadelphia with like spirit. Expecting to march through Baltimore, they panted for an opportunity of avenging the noble men who had fallen there. The citi zens met them with generous hospitality, and their passage through Philadelphia was an ovation.

But their indignation towards the Baltimorians was not to be appeased by fighting their own way through that city. Orders reached them to advance toward Washington through Annapolis, and they obeyed, much against the general inclination of the regiment.

I have said that the authorities in Baltimore were powerless; they had no means of learning how far the secession spirit had spread through the city. It is true the riot of the 19th had been ostensibly the action of a low mob, but how far the same spirit extended among the people no one could guess.

On the 20th the mob became more and more belligerent. It assembled at Canton, fired a pistol at the engineer of the Philadelphia train when it came in, and forcing the passengers to leave the cars, rushed in themselves and compelled the engineer to take them back to Gunpowder bridge. There the train was stopped while the mob set fire to the draw-bridge, then returned to Bush river bridge, burned the draw there, and finished their raid by burning Canton bridge.

While this was going on outside the city, materials for fresh commotion were gathering in the streets.

All through the day the accessions from the country were coming in. Sometimes a squad of infantry, sometimes a troop of horse, and once a small park of artillery. It was nothing extraordinary to see a "solitary horseman" riding in from the country, with shot-gun, powderhorn and flask. Some came with provender lashed to the saddle, prepared to picket off for the night. Boys accompanied their fathers, accoutred apparently with the sword and holster-pistols that had done service a century ago. There appeared strange contrasts between the stern, solemn bearing of the father, and the buoyant, excited, enthu

siastic expressions of the boy's face, eloquent with devotion and patriotism; for mistaken and wrong, they were not the less actuated by the most unselfish spirit of loyalty. They hardly knew, any of them, for what they had so suddenly came to Baltimore. They had a vague idea, only, that Maryland had been invaded, and that it was the solemn duty of her sons to protect their soil from the encroachments of a hostile force.

In the streets of the lower part of the city, were gathered immense crowds among whom discussions and the high pitch of excitement which discussion engenders, grew clamorous. The mob-for Baltimore street was one vast mob-was surging to and fro, uncertain in what direction to move, and apparently without any special purpose. Many had small secession cards pinned on their coat collars, and not a few were armed with guns, pistols and knives, of which they made the most display. Thus the day ended and the night came on. During the darkness the whole city seemed lying in wait for the foe. Every moment the mob expected the descent of some Federal regiment upon them, and the thirst for strife had grown so fierce that terrible bloodshed must have followed if the troops from Philadelphia or Harrisburg had attempted to pass through Baltimore then.

On Sunday, April 21, the city was in a state of unparalleled excitement. Private citizens openly carried arms in the streets. Along the line of the railroad almost every house was supplied with muskets or revolvers and missiles, in some instances even with small cannon. Volunteers were enlisting rapidly, and the streets became more and more crowded. Abundance of arms had sprung to light, as if by magic, in rebellious hands. Troops were continually arriving and placing themselves in readiness for action.

A great crowd was constantly surging around the telegraph office, waiting anxiously for news. The earnest inquiry was as to the whereabouts of the New York troops-the most frequent topic, the probable results of an attempt on the part of the Seventh regiment to force a passage through Baltimore. All agreed that the force could never go through-all agreed that it would make the attempt if ordered to do so, and no one seemed to entertain a doubt that it would leave a winrow of dead bodies from the ranks of those who assailed it in the streets through which it might attempt to pass.

As the wires of the telegraph leading to New York had been cut, there was no news to be had for the crowd from that direction.

The police force were entirely in sympathy with the secessionists, and indisposed to act against the mob. Marshal Kane and the Commissioners made no concealment of their proclivities for the secession movement. Amid this tumult the Mayor of Baltimore and a committee of citizens

started for Washington. Their object was to influence the President against forwarding troops through the city in its present agitated state. But the knowledge of his departure did nothing toward allaying the excitement.

About eight o'clock, the streets began again to be crowded. The barrooms and public resorts were closed, that the incentive to precipitate action might not be too readily accessible. Nevertheless there was much excitement, and among the crowd were many men from the country, who carried shot and duck guns, and old-fashioned horsepistols, such as the "Maryland line" might have carried from the first to the present war. The best weapons appeared to be in the hands of young men-boys of eighteen-with the physique, dress and style of deportment cultivated by the "Dead Rabbits" of New York.

About ten o'clock, a cry was raised that 3,000 Pennsylvania troops were at the Calvert street depot of the Pennsylvania railroad, and were about to take up their line of march through the city. It was said that the 3,000 were at Pikesville, about fifteen miles from the city, and were going to fight their way around the city. The crowd were not disposed to interfere with a movement that required a preliminary tramp of fifteen miles through a heavy sand. But the city authorities, however, rapidly organized and armed some three or four companies and sent them towards Pikesville. Ten of the Adams' Express wagons passed up Baltimore street, loaded with armed men. In one or two there were a number of mattresses, as if wounded men were anticipated. A company of cavalry also started for Pikesville to sustain the infantry that had been expressed. Almost before the last of the expedition had left the city limits, word was telegraphed to Marshal Kane by Mayor Brown from Washington, that the government had ordered the Pennsylvania troops back to Harrisburgh, from the point they had been expected to move on to Baltimore. It seemed incredible, but, of course, satisfactory to the belligerents.

The moment it was known that the government had abandoned the intention of forcing troops through Baltimore, this intense commotion settled into comparative calm, but the city was forced to feel the effect of its own folly.. The regular passenger trains north had been stopped. Many business men have been utterly ruined by the extraordinary position into which the city was plunged through the action of the mob. Capital has been swept away, and commercial advantages sacrificed, that no time or enterprise can replace. Those engaged in trade, have no part in these troubles except to suffer. The mob had them in complete subjection, and a stain has been cast on the city which no time can efface. Yet the whole of this attack was doubtless the work of those classes who form the bane and dregs of society, in every great city;