The Baltimore riot of 1861 occurred on April 19, 1861, in a city where many residents opposed violent conflict with the South and sympathized with the Confederate cause. Historian David J. Eicher described Baltimore in 1861 as a "largely pro-Southern city," and this sentiment was demonstrated in the previous year's presidential election, in which Abraham Lincoln received only 1,100 of more than 30,000 votes cast. The riot erupted when state militia regiments from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, who had been called up for federal service and were en route to Washington, D.C., encountered antiwar "Copperhead" Democrats and other Confederate sympathizers on the streets of Baltimore.
The conflict began at the President Street Station on Friday, April 19, 1861, between the Union militia regiments and the civilian attackers who opposed their passage through the city. The fighting spread from President Street throughout the city, eventually reaching Howard Street, where it concluded at the Camden Street Station. The riot represented a direct confrontation between federal forces moving to defend the national capital and local civilians who sympathized with the seceding Southern states.
The Baltimore riot of 1861 produced the first deaths of Union volunteers by hostile action in the American Civil War, though these casualties were caused by civilians rather than by organized Confederate military forces. Both Union soldiers and civilians among the attackers were killed during the violence. This event marked a significant moment in the early days of the war, demonstrating the deep divisions that existed even in border states like Maryland and the willingness of some civilians to resist federal authority through violence.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
4 soldiers, 12 civilians killed
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