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Government and private property, which had been planned by the conspirators some days before, and “had been proclaimed in other parts of the
State.”
1 Kane said that he had received information by telegraph that other troops were on their way to
Baltimore by the railways from
Harrisburg and
Philadelphia, and proposed the immediate destruction of bridges on these roads, to prevent the passage of cars.
The
Mayor approved the plan, but said his jurisdiction was limited to the corporate boundaries of the city.
The Governor had the power to order the destruction; and to his chamber the three (with a brother of the
Mayor) repaired,
Mr. Hicks being too ill to rise.
They soon came out of that chamber with the
Governor's acquiescence in their plans, they said; but which he afterward explicitly denied in a communication to the Maryland Senate, and later
in an address to the people of
Maryland.
Their own testimony.shows that his consent was reluctantly given, if given at all, in the words:--“I suppose it must be done ;” and then only, according to common rumor and common belief, after arguments such as
South Carolina vigilance committees generally used had been applied.
2 With this alleged authority,
Kane and
Lowe, accompanied by
Mayor Brown and his brother, hastened to the office of Charles
Howard, the
President of the Board of Police, who was waiting for them, when that officer and the
Mayor issued orders for the destruction of the bridges.
3 The work was soon accomplished.
A gang of lawless men hastened out to the
Canton bridge, two or three miles from the city, on the
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Destruction of the Bridge over gunpowder Creek.4 |
Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railway, and destroyed it. As the train from the North approached the station, it was stopped by the interference of a pistol fired at the engineer.
The passengers were at once turned out of the cars, and these were filled by the mob, who compelled the engineer to run his train back to the long bridges over the Gunpowder and Bush Creeks, arms of Chesapeake Bay.
These bridges were fired, and large
