George Brown - Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861 - A Study of the War

These proposals, from such different sources as Fernando Wood and John P. Kennedy, tend to show the uncertainty and bewilderment which had taken possession of the minds of men, and in which few did not share to a greater or less degree.

The culmination of this period of misrule was at the election in November, 1859, when the fraud and violence were so flagrant that the Legislature of the State unseated the whole Baltimore delegation – ten members. The city being thus without representation, it became necessary, when a special session of the Legislature was called in April, 1861, that a new delegation from Baltimore should be chosen. It was this same Legislature (elected in 1859), which took away from the mayor of the city the control of its police, and entrusted that force to a board of police commissioners. This change, a most fortunate one for the city at that crisis, resulted in the immediate establishment of good order, and made possible the reform movement of the next autumn.

Hanson's Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, p. 14.

According to some of the published accounts seven cars got through, which would have been one to each company, but I believe that the number of the cars and of the companies did not correspond. Probably the larger companies were divided.

For participation in placing this obstruction, a wealthy merchant of long experience, usually a very peaceful man, was afterward indicted for treason by the Grand Jury of the Circuit Court of the United States in Baltimore, but his trial was not pressed.