Sold – Lincoln Takes Action to Reward Union Loyaltists in Baltimore
The Policy of President Lincoln and His Administration: Holding Maryland Key to Maintaining the Union.
In the opening months of 1861, with South Carolina out of the Union and other Southern states having called conventions to declare secession, feeling was divided in Maryland. The tobacco counties of southern Maryland and the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay were secessionist. The grain-growing counties of northern and western Maryland,...
In the opening months of 1861, with South Carolina out of the Union and other Southern states having called conventions to declare secession, feeling was divided in Maryland. The tobacco counties of southern Maryland and the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay were secessionist. The grain-growing counties of northern and western Maryland, containing few slaves, were safe for the Union. But the loyalty of Baltimore, with a third of the state’s population, was suspect. The mayor’s unionism was tepid, the police chief openly sympathized with the South, and the city’s business leadership was split, having ties both North and South. Many in the city called for Maryland to convene a secession convention. Responding to the urgency of the hour, a meeting was held by Union men on January 10, 1861, at the Maryland Institute, with Archibald Stirling as president and a number of citizens, including John J. Abrahams, as joint vice presidents. The speakers applauded the pro-Union sentiments in orations by ex-U.S. Senator and Attorney General Reverdy Johnson and others.
If the public interest can be served as well, or nearly as well, I would like our Union friends in Baltimore to be obliged.
President-elect Lincoln had to pass through Baltimore on his way to Washington for his inauguration. Allan Pinkerton’s detectives uncovered a plot to murder him as he moved through Baltimore, so he famously had to pass through in stealth and disguise. After the war broke out on April 12, 1861, Confederate flags appeared on many Baltimore homes and buildings. On April 19, as the 6th Massachusetts Infantry marched through Baltimore headed to protect the capital, there was a riot and a number of soldiers were killed by the mob. Pro-Confederate Baltimore activists cut the telegraph lines north, pulled marking buoys from the harbor to prevent ship entry, and destroyed bridges to make train access almost impossible, while groups of citizens went to the White House to demand that no Northern troops be sent through Baltimore. As thousands of pro-Union men and women fled the city, even Unionists like Reverdy Johnson began to call on Lincoln to avoid sending soldiers through the city lest rioting become pervasive.
Lincoln believed that holding the border states meant everything, writing, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we can not hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us.†Rather than withhold troops, he sent them into Maryland, and this had the effect of encouraging Union sympathizers there. He also suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus and the army began arresting those with the most pronounced pro-Southern positions. In late May, Chief Justice Roger Taney questioned the President’s right to suspend the Writ and the contest between him and Lincoln was joined.
My word is not needed in addition to the President’s; the importance of giving employment to loyal Union men in Baltimore cannot be overestimated.
With war a reality, the U.S. government found itself in need of gunboats, and fast. So in May 1861 a circular was sent to naval administrative personnel stating that government contracts were to be offered and applications from shipbuilders accepted. The work would be awarded by competitive bid and otherwise (this “and otherwise†phrasiology had great meaning, as it provided flexibility in selecting ship builders). One shipbuilder interested in obtaining government contracts was John J. Abrahams, the same man who had stepped forward in Baltimore to support the Union cause five months earlier. A well-placed businessman, he was one of the incorporators of the Board of Trade of the City of Baltimore during the previous decade. He let the Naval Officer at Baltimore know of his desire, and seemingly the entire U.S. government swung into gear beside him.
The following grouping of letters and endorsements contains the sentiments of the senoir Union leadership about Baltimore in the days before its loyalty became an accepted fact. We obtained it directly from a family that had it for generations, and it has never before been offered for sale. First is an Autograph Letter Signed of the Naval Officer at Baltimore, a Federal appointee. “Mr. J.J. Abrahams is a good shipbuilder…and loyal to the Government.I trust he may have an opportunity of competing for some of the gunboats.†Next is an Autograph Letter Signed of Thomas Swann, pro-Union former mayor of Baltimore, June 3, 1861, to Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, certifying that “Mr. J.J. Abrahams is advantageously known as a competent and reliable shipbuilder…It affords me great pleasure to commend him to you…†Then Reverdy Johnson wrote an Autograph Letter Signed, Baltimore, June 3, 1861, to Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, “…introducing to you Mr. J.J. Abrahams of this city. Mr. A. is a ship builder, and as I have reason to believe, an admirable man. Baltimore should have part…of building some of the vessels of war…†Finally, Maryland native and Lincoln Cabinet member, the ever-influential Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, wrote an Autograph Letter Signed, Washington, June 13, 1861, to fellow Cabinet member Navy Secretary Gideon Welles. “The writer of this you know is the Naval Officer at Baltimore & a most reliable & intelligent man. If you can give our people this employment I believe it will contribute as much almost as the vessels for which they are designed.†Blair’s essential point, that the very act of employing large numbers of Baltimorians, and being seen present and visibly manufacturing in Baltimore, would do more to aid the war effort than the ships that would be built, is an important one.
Lincoln and Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase responded with what must be understood as statements of policy. First Lincoln: Autograph Endorsement Signed as President, June 14, 1861, apparently to Welles. “If the public interest can be served as well, or nearly as well, I would like our Union friends in Baltimore to be obliged.†Then, perhaps because the Treasury would be paying the tab, the applicant took the matter to Chase, who added an Autograph Endorsement Signed, “My word is not needed in addition to the President’s; the importance of giving employment to loyal Union men in Baltimore cannot be overestimated.†These papers are not in Basler’s “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln†and are unpublished.
Abrahams got his contracts. There is a famous naval print from 1863 entitled “United States Gunboat “Eutaw”. Built by John J. Abrahams & Son Baltimore, Md.â€
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