Today marks the 153rd anniversary of the Baltimore Riot. The 6th Massachusetts Infantry, trying to make its way through town to Camden Station, on the way to Washington D.C., ended up firing into an angry mob in the streets of Baltimore.
The 14 people left dead that day comprised the first blood shed in the Civil War.
I posted about this event in more detail a few months ago as part of a series of posts about local Civil War history.
The first Civil War burial that I discovered at Loudon Park was Confederate Col. Harry Gilmor. He was present at the Battle of Gettysburg as a Major in command of the 1st MD Cavalry Battalion (CSA) – part of Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade – though they did not participate in the action at the East Cavalry field.
After Gettysburg, he continued his service in the cavalry, serving most notably under Lt. General Jubal Early during his campaign through Maryland which culminated in the Battle of Monocacy in July of 1864. I actually found out about his burial in Loudon Park from the book I read about that campaign recently
After the war, he wrote a book about his experiences, and went on to serve as the Baltimore City Police Commissioner for 5 years.
Col. Gilmor is buried in the Confederate Hill section of Loudon Park. A very prominent headstone marks his gravesite:
As you may guess (with a whole section named “Confederate Hill”) there are certainly a few more prominent leaders with Gettysburg connections buried at Loudon Park. In the next installment, we’ll show the grave of one of the infantry commanders from that battle.
Earlier today, I posted about the burials in Loudon Park Cemetery with connections to the Lincoln Assassination, but these are not the only graves in Baltimore that have a connection to that tragic event in our nation’s history.
There were ten people involved in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln and other government officials in April of 1865. Fully half of these (bolded) are buried in Baltimore cemeteries:
Eventually, I’m going to get around to covering each of these on the blog – maybe around the anniversary of the trial – I just wanted to make a note about those local Baltimore connections while the topic is fresh.
Also, if you haven’t seen it – The Conspirator is a recent movie that does a pretty good job of telling the story of the trial. It’s not available to stream at this point, but Netflix has it as a DVD (and so does Amazon
149 years ago tonight, John Wilkes Booth famously shot Abraham Lincoln during a performance of the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. While the Civil War had more-or-less ended a few days before with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the bloodshed and bad feelings clearly had not.
There are two burials in Loudon Park Cemetery that have a tangible connection to this tragic event in U.S. history. The first is John T. Ford – the owner and manager of the aptly-named Ford’s Theatre. A friend of John Wilkes Booth, Ford admitted to mentioning in one of their conversations that Lincoln would be attending the play, and he was thus jailed as a suspected member of the famous conspiracy. After more than a month in prison, Ford was finally cleared of wrong-doing and went on with his life, albeit embittered by the experience of being falsely accused of a capital crime. He continued to manage many theatres in the region until his death in 1894.
His grave is located almost in the middle of the cemetery, in Section XX:
Another Loudon Park Cemetery connection to that night is Samuel J. Seymour. As a 5 year-old boy, he attended the April 14, 1865 performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre with a family friend and was seated directly across from the Presidential box. While he didn’t remember seeing the gunshot, he did see Booth leap from the balcony to the stage, and his immediate reaction was that the commotion in the theatre was due to the man who fell. When Mr. Seymour passed away in 1956, he was the last surviving witness of the assassination.
He made an appearance on the television game show I’ve Got a Secret a few weeks before his death where his story was told. A video from that appearance has made its way onto YouTube.
Both Wikipedia AND FindAGrave have his gravesite location as being in Loudon Park National Cemetery, but it is in fact located in the private Loudon Park Cemetery. Specifically, it’s in the newer part of that cemetery, in the Bethel Section (and as far as I can tell, his grave is unmarked):
Next time, we’ll get to some of the Confederate burials in Loudon Park that are directly related to the Battle of Gettysburg.
So I’m going to start my series on Loudon Park with a non-Civil War burial, but it’s a big one. Mary Pickersgill is probably the most famous person resting in Loudon Park.
Apart from being a successful business owner and charitable figure in 19th century Baltimore – remarkable achievements for anyone let alone a woman back in those days – she is best known for sewing the giant garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on September 12, 1814.
Her headstone is small and understated, but a plaque that briefly explains her importance was placed on her grave by a few historical preservation groups in 1976. In addition, the old cemetery gatehouse has a large, 15-star Star Spangled Banner draped on its eastern wall at all times – a subtle tribute to Mrs. Pickersgill.
Her grave is located near the Frederick Road entrance (which appears to be permanently closed these days) in Section AA in the northern part of the cemetery:
If you weren’t actually out looking for her grave, you’d never know it was here. With so many other large, ostentatious monuments in Loudon Park, seeing a simple set of markers is actually somewhat refreshing. It certainly speaks to what kind of woman she was.
In the next installment, we’ll see a pair of graves relating to one of the most famously shocking events of the Civil War era.
As part of the research I’m doing for an upcoming trip to Gettysburg, I’ve been looking more deeply into the Maryland connections to the battle.
There were 11 regiments present with a Maryland designation – 6 Union and 5 Confederate – but what I learned is that many of the officers of those units are buried right down the street from where I grew up, at Loudon Park Cemetery. Aside from those Civil War veterans, there are many other notable people buried there – in fact, I created new categories for Loudon Park so that I can share what I’ve found over several posts in the next few weeks.
Some of the sites on the Internet are a little confused about Loudon Park because there are actually two cemeteries there. Loudon Park Cemetery is owned and run by a private company. The northeast corner of the property houses Loudon Park National Cemetery, a separate burial ground run by the VA, and operated by nearby Baltimore National Cemetery. I’m going to try to clear up some of the confusion by actually visiting the gravesides and verifying their locations. It should be an interesting trip through Maryland history.
27 years ago today, in 1987, the case of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.
A few months later, when the opinion was delivered, it included one of the dumbest (or maybe scariest) lines in the history of American law:
Our cases have not elaborated on the standards for determining what constitutes a “legitimate state interest”…
To paraphrase Tim Sandefur‘s thoughts on the matter: On the 200th anniversary of the Constitution of the United States – even with the aid of the Federalist Papers – the nation’s best lawyers, on the highest court in the land, still have no idea what the government exists to do.
This is the state of things, folks.
I stumbled onto this post a few days ago (honestly, I don’t remember where I first saw it) and marked it to read later. After finally getting around to reading it this morning, I felt like I had to share.
Can you imagine the sight of full Confederate brigades, their pent-up energy from months spent in winter quarters, unleashed on each other in the form of a snowball fight? From the description in the article, they were pretty serious about it, too:
The charge was sounded by our buglers, and the brigadiers and colonels gallantly led on their respective commands. When the contending columns met, the shock was terrible – the air was filled with whizzing snowballs, and above the confusion rung out on the clear cold air the shouts of the combatants. Here and there might be seen some unlucky hero placed hors du combat, with a red eye or a bloody nose.
It must have been incredible to witness. You should most definitely go read the full article.
Today marks the adopted birthday of one of my heroes, Frederick Douglass.
Since he was born as a slave, he had no way of knowing when his birthday fell exactly, but he thought Valentine’s Day was as good a day as any to pick for the celebration. We also don’t know for certain what year he was born, but it was probably around 1818. His birth site is pretty clear from his own writings (though the Maryland State Roads Commission doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo).
Whatever the truth is, we can still take a day each year to remember what a great man he was. Happy 196th, Mr. Douglass!
