When Lincoln learned of this he sent troops to make sure they stayed in the building till the mobs who wanted to storm the place could be dispersed."
The 1861 Maryland situation is often confused, and I think deliberately to grind whatever ax is wielded.
But the basics are not that complicated:
- By 1860 Maryland had the highest number of freed-slaves of any state, North or South, and the fewest percent of slaveholding families of any slave-state except Delaware.
- In 1860 Marylanders voted for Breckenridge over John Bell's Constitutional Union party by less than 1% margin.
However, if we consider the other parties as pro-Union, then the total pro-Union vote was 54% versus 46% Breckenridge. - On April 19, 1861 a mob of pro-Confederates attacked Union troops in Baltimore, four soldiers died & 12 civilians.
- On April 29 Maryland's legislature voted 53-13 against secession, four to one.
Note this was after Fort Sumter but before Confederates formally declared war on the United States. - On May 6, Confederates formally declared war on the United States thus satisfying the Constitution's definition of Treason, making it illegal for Marylanders to give aid & comfort to Confederates.
- In May numerous Maryland officials were arrested & held without trial, including militia captain John Merryman.
Merryman's case was heard by Marylander Roger Taney then acting as a Federal circuit court judge.
Taney ruled Lincoln could not on his own deny habeas corpus.
Lincoln ignored Taney's ruling and Congress eventually granted Lincoln authority -- as did the Confederate Congress for Jefferson Davis. - On September 17, 1861, the first day of the Maryland legislature's new session, fully one third of the members of the Maryland General Assembly were arrested, due to federal concerns that the Assembly "would aid the anticipated rebel invasion and would attempt to take the state out of the Union."[36]
Please note here, the number arrested was 1/3, not 1/2 or 2/3, meaning pro-Confederates were the minority. - Overall estimates are that Maryland provided two Union troops for every one Confederate, suggesting that, like other Border States (West Virginia, Kentucky & Missouri) Unionists far outnumbered secessionists.
- On April 14, 1865 Marylander John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln.
