Note 1 — Chapter I

The fight which occurred in the streets of Baltimore on the 19th of April, 1861, between the 6th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers and a mob of citizens, was also memorable, because then was shed the first blood in a conflict between the North and the South; then a step was taken which made compromise or retreat almost impossible; then passions on both sides were aroused which could not be controlled.[1] In each case the outbreak was an explosion of conflicting forces long suppressed, but certain, sooner or later, to occur. Here the coincidence ends. The Minute Men of Massachusetts were so called because they were prepared to rise on a minute's notice. They had anticipated and had prepared for the strife. The attack by the mob in Baltimore was a sudden uprising of popular fury. The events themselves were magnified as the tidings flashed over the whole country, and the consequences were immediate. The North became wild with astonishment and rage, and the South rose to fever-heat from the conviction that Maryland was about to fall into line as the advance guard of the Southern Confederacy.