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What would be the effect of the proclamation, of the mustering of troops in the capital, and of the bloodshed at Baltimore upon the slave States which still remained in the Union, was a problem of immeasurable importance.  The President, who had been obliged to take the responsibility of precipitating the crisis in these States, appreciated more accurately than any one else the magnitude of the stake involved in their allegiance.  He watched them with the deepest anxiety, and brought the utmost care and tact of his nature to the task of influencing them.  The geographical position of Maryland, separating the District of Columbia from the loyal North, made it of the first consequence.  The situation there, precarious at best, seemed to be rendered actually hopeless by what had occurred.  A tempest of uncontrollable rage whirled away the people and prostrated all Union feeling.  Mayor Brown admits that “for some days it looked very much as if Baltimore had taken her stand decisively with the South;” and this was putting it mildly, when the Secessionist Marshal Kane was telegraphing:  “Streets red with Maryland blood.  Send express over the mountains of Maryland and Virginia for the riflemen to come without delay.”  Governor Hicks was opposed to secession, but he was shaken like a reed by this violent blast.  Later on this same April 19, Mayor Brown sent three gentlemen to President Lincoln, bearing a letter from himself, in which he said that it was “not possible for more soldiers to pass through Baltimore unless they fight their way at every step.”  That night he caused the northward railroad bridges to be burned and disabled; and soon afterward the telegraph wires were cut.

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.