The President met the emergency with coolness and straightforward
simplicity, abiding firmly by his main purpose, but conciliatory as to
means. He wrote to the governor and the mayor: "For the future troops
_must_ be brought here, but I make no point of bringing them _through_
Baltimore;" he would "march them _around_ Baltimore," if, as he hoped,
General Scott should find it feasible to do so. In fulfillment of this
promise he ordered a detachment, which had arrived at a station near
Baltimore, to go all the way back to Philadelphia and come around by
water. He only demurred when the protests were extended to include the
whole "sacred" soil of Maryland,--for it appeared that the presence of
slavery accomplished the consecration of soil! His troops, he said,
could neither fly over the State, nor burrow under it; therefore they
must cross it, and the Marylanders must learn that "there was no piece
of American soil too good to be pressed by the foot of a loyal soldier
on his march to the defense of the capital of his country." For a while,
however, until conditions in Baltimore changed, Eastern regiments came
by way of Annapolis, though with difficulty and delay. Yet, even upon
this route, conflict was narrowly avoided.
Soon, however, these embarrassments came to an end, and the President's
policy was vindicated by its fruits. It had been strictly his own; he
alone ruled the occasion, and he did so in the face of severe pressure
to do otherwise, some of which came even from members of his cabinet.
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