Note 12 — Chapter V

Early on the morning of Saturday, the 20th, a large Confederate flag floated from the headquarters of a States Rights club on Fayette street near Calvert, and on the afternoon of the same day the Minute Men, a Union club, whose headquarters were on Baltimore street, gave a most significant indication of the strength of the wave of feeling which swept over our people by hauling down the National colors and running up in their stead the State flag of Maryland, amid the cheers of the crowd.[12] Everywhere on the streets men and boys were wearing badges which displayed miniature Confederate flags, and were cheering the Southern cause. Military companies began to arrive from the counties. On Saturday, first came a company of seventy men from Frederick, under Captain Bradley T. Johnson, afterward General in the Southern Army, and next two cavalry companies from Baltimore County, and one from Anne Arundel County. These last, the Patapsco Dragoons, some thirty men, a sturdy-looking body of yeomanry, rode straight to the City Hall and drew up, expecting to be received with a speech of welcome from the mayor. I made them a very brief address, and informed them that dispatches received from Washington had postponed the necessity for their services, whereupon they started homeward amid cheers, their bugler striking up "Dixie," which was the first time I heard that tune. A few days after, they came into Baltimore again. On Sunday came in the Howard County Dragoons, and by steamboat that morning two companies from Talbot County, and soon it was reported that from Harford, Cecil, Carroll and Prince George's, companies were on their way. All the city companies of uniformed militia were, of course, under arms. Three batteries of light artillery were in the streets, among them the light field-pieces belonging to the military school at Catonsville, but these the reverend rector of the school, a strong Union man, had thoughtfully spiked.