The Baltimore riot of 1861 (also called the Pratt Street Riot and the Pratt Street Massacre) was an incident that took place on April 19, 1861 in Baltimore, Maryland between Confederate sympathizers and infantrymen of the United States Army. It is regarded by historians as the first bloodshed of the American Civil War.

Causes of the riot

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On April 12, one week prior to the riot, the battle of Fort Sumter started, signalling the beginning of the American Civil War. At the time, the slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas had not yet seceded from the U.S.. In addition, it was not yet known whether four other slave states, (Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky) (later known as "border states"), would remain in the Union. When Fort Sumter fell on April 13 without a single man lost, the Virginia legislature took up a measure on secession. After little debate, the measure passed on April 17. The other southern states watched with interest to see what would happen, as the secession of Virginia was important because of the state's industrial value. Influential Marylanders who had been supportive of secession ever since John C. Calhoun spoke of "nullification" and agitated to join Virginia in leaving the Union. Their discontent increased in the days afterward and peaked on April 19.

April 19, 1861

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On April 19, the Union's Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was travelling south to Washington, D.C. through Baltimore. At that time, there was no direct rail connection between the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad's President Street Station and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Camden Station due to ordinances prohibiting the use of steam locomotives in the inner city. Rail cars that transferred between the two stations had to be pulled by horses along Pratt Street.

As the regiment transferred between stations, a mob of secessionists and Southern sympathizers attacked the train cars and blocked the route. When it became apparent that they could travel by horse no further, the troops got out of the cars and marched in formation through the city. However, the mob followed the soldiers, breaking store windows and causing damage until they finally blocked the soldiers. The mob began throwing paving stones and bricks at the troops. Panicked by the situation, several soldiers fired into the mob, and chaos immediately ensued as a giant brawl began between fleeing soldiers, the violent mob, and the Baltimore police who tried to suppress the violence. In the end, the soldiers got to the Camden Station, and the police were able to block the crowd from them. The regiment had left behind much of their equipment, including their marching band.

Four soldiers and twelve civilians were killed in the riot.

Aftermath

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After the April 19th rioting, some small skirmishes occurred throughout Baltimore between citizens and police for the next month, but a sense of normalcy returned as the city was cleaned up. Mayor George William Brown and Maryland Governor Thomas Hicks implored President Lincoln to reroute troops around Baltimore city and through Annapolis to avoid further confrontations. On the evening of April 20th Hicks also authorized Brown to dispatch the Maryland state militia for the purpose of disabling the railroad bridges into the city - an act he would later deny. One of the militia captains was John Merryman, who was arrested without a writ of habeas corpus one month later, sparking the case of Ex parte Merryman.

Lincoln complied with the request to reroute troops to Annapolis at first. However, on May 13, the Union army entered Baltimore, occupied the city and declared martial law, to prevent all further incidents. The mayor, city council, and police commissioner, who were pro-South and seemingly incompetent at maintaining order in the situation, were arrested and imprisoned at Fort McHenry. Meanwhile, the states of Arkansas and Tennessee, seeing how federal troops acted in the pro-South Union state on April 19, seceded on May 6.

After the occupation of the city, Union troops were garrisoned throughout the state. Several members of the Maryland legislature were arrested, days before a delayed secession vote which historians now consider likely to have failed even without those arrests, and the state was placed under direct federal administration. Days afterward, North Carolina became the final state to approve secession (May 21). Delaware was occupied by Union troops due to its proximity to (and to prevent a repeat of the events that took place in) Maryland. Kentucky declared its neutrality (although it would eventually join the Union's side), and although Missouri was on the Union side, a Confederate government-in-exile existed in Arkansas and Texas. Maryland would remain under federal administration, and Delaware occupied, until April 1865, the end of the war.

1861 | American Civil War | History of Baltimore | Riots and civil unrest in the United States | Secession crisis of 1860-1861