cflistory- Baltinr n Hi E _ty

This publication is indexed in the PERiodical Source Index published by Agriculture Building the Allen County Public Library 9811 Van Buren Lane Foundation (PERSI). Cockeysville, Md. 21030

ISSN 0889-6186 Editors: JOHN W. McGRAIN and WILLIAM HOLLIFIELD VOL. 25 AUTUMN 1990 NO. 1 Baltimorean in Big Trouble: Samuel Arnold, A Lincoln Conspirator Part I

by Percy E. Martin

It should be said at the outset that Samuel Bland Arnold, though convicted by a military commission in 1865, never participated in the murder of . President , who began his term of office during the emotional upheaval of the assassination and the conspiracy trial, came finally to believe that the verdict and investigation that preceded it were of dubious legitimacy. In February of 1869 he pardoned Arnold, then serving a life sentence at America's own Devil's Island—Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.' Federal transportation was provided only to Key West, where Arnold's father met him and paid for their passage home on the steamship Cuba. An older companion, Edman Spangler, pardoned for the same offense, left the ship when it reached and made his way to his home in York, Pennsylvania. When the Arnolds disembarked, it put an end to a sad chapter in the life of a sensitive and embittered man who never forgave his persecutors. Arnold, who had been involved to varying degrees in some of the momentous events of the 1860s—from secession to civil war and from assassina- tion to impeachment—no doubt wondered how things had gotten so far out of hand.2 Born in Georgetown, D.C., in 1834, Arnold became a —Richard and Kale Gutman Collection Baltimorean when his family arrived in the Monumental City about 1840. (Arnold was away from this city many times thereafter but Booth lured his schoolmate Samuel B. Arnold into a always returned to what became his hometown.) Baltimore had web of conspiracy. much of the character of a small town. Located in the area of today's business district was a community of merchants' families who lived above their shops and attended nearby schools and churches. family grew and prospered. The new affluence was reflected in the Among the social activities, peculiar to the men, was the joining dispatching of Samuel and his older brother, George, to boarding of volunteer fire companies such as that of the Liberty firehouse in schools near Baltimore and Washington. the triangle formed by Park Street (later Park Avenue), Liberty, and Both of the young men were enrolled at Georgetown College from Fayette Streets. The lived at their bakery/confec- September 1844 to July 1848. Samuel studied briefly at the small tionery on the southwest corner of Fayette and Park Streets where the academy of John Hutson Dashiell in Govanstown in 1850 and then elder Arnold became one of the directors of the fire company. An was sent to St. Timothy's Hall in Catonsville in 1852.6 early print depicts the engine house and the primitive condition of This sprawling, multistory institution stood near Frederick Road, the streets near the bakery.4 where present Ingleside Avenue crosses. Young Samuel must have When in 1842 , Samuel's father, opened his new approached this imposing pile with some trepidation. By his own ad- shop, he used this occasion to rid himself of a considerable embar- mission he valued at that period of his life nothing so much as a good rassment; he legally changed his name to George William Arnold.' time. St. Timothy's put little value on good times. The rules that The G. W. Arnold Bakery became an immediate success and the governed the 10- to 17-year-old boys numbered in the dozens. As a PAGE 2 HISTORY TRAILS AUTUMN 1990

military school, discipline was strict and only serious application to studies was tolerated. Privileges depended on good behavior and could be withdrawn at any time. The Reverend Libertus Van Bokkelen and his staff ran, as the saying goes, a tight ship./ In 1853 the students replied to what they considered an unfair edict in a manner that would have satisfied the wildest dreams of schoolboys of any era. They rose as a body and, after raiding the school's arsenal for weapons and ammunition, took to the nearby woods where they barricaded themselves in defiance of all authority for several days. The revolt, brought about when a scheduled holiday was canceled because of some individuals' mischief-making, was set- tled peaceably by negotiation. One aspect of this was the appeal of various parents to their sons in the "ranks," such as that of Mr. Arnold to Samuel.8 At St. Timothy's, Arnold acquired the necessary skills of the clerical profession and became friendly with some interesting young men The student roster read like a "Who's Who" of prominent local families. It contained the names of boys who would become —The Peale Museum well known in the dark days ahead. In a lower class were Fitzhugh Neighborhood of the Arnold family bakery at Baltimore and Liberty Lee and his brother Smith, and in a different grade was John Wilkes Streets in October 4, 1856, issue of the Illustrated News. Booth of the famous theatrical family. Robert Garner, son of a The Liberty Firehouse is the building with the tower. deceased Anne Arundel County state senator, became a close friend, but the closeness of Arnold's acquaintance with Booth is not known, though Booth remembered him long after their school days were When the war fever subsided on the 27th, Edward R. Dorsey over, joined the flood of Baltimore men heading south to join the In those antebellum years, Samuel often stayed at the log cabin forces. On the road were three others—sons of a Baltimore baker. home of his youngest brother, William, near Hookstown [now Arl- On May 17, the Arnold boys, Samuel, Charles, and Frank, were in ington] in Baltimore County. William's small acreage abutted the Richmond with Edward Dorsey's company of Marylanders, training large farm of his uncle William J. Bland, brother of his mother Mary at the Camp of Instruction. By June 25, the company was in Win- Jane. Mr. Bland purchased the land from Geroge W. Arnold who re- chester at a camp on Romney Road, near the residences of Senator tained a few acres for his two youngest children, William and James M. Mason and Angus McDonald. Here they met the Oreon.10 other Maryland companies that had formed or were stationed at Hookstown was little more than a stagecoach stop on the Harpers Ferry.15 Reisterstown Turnpike with its center near present Belvedere On July 21, Dorsey's Company C occupied the position of lead Avenue, where the Four Mile House tavern was located. Further out company of the 1st Maryland Regiment as their brigade, under (at present Hayward Avenue) was a Methodist church. Across the Kirby Smith and Arnold Elzey, provided the crushing blow to the lane on the same side of the main road was Feelemeyer's general flanks of the federal troops which were assailing 's store / post office, where the stage stopped on its daily run between unyielding Virginians. This tactical masterpiece precipitated the rout Baltimore and Pikesville. Arnold, later, fondly recalled the peaceful of the and ended the Battle of First Manassas. i6 times spent at the Hookstown farm before he was caught in the Later Samuel Arnold contracted an illness and was hospitalized in maelstrom of the 1860s.11 Richmond. He was discharged for disability and never rejoined his With the onset of the new decade, the center of Baltimore began two brothers in the ranks of the Confederate army. In early 1862, to vibrate with the excitement of the impending conflict. The Arnold arrived in Baltimore where he needed many months of con- historian J. Thomas Scharf noted that one of the earliest examples of valescence before he would try to seek out his brothers and the southern sympathy occurred at the firehouse where the senior Mr. Maryland compatriots he had left in the turmoils of the Southern Arnold had twice been elected president of volunteers: struggle. This opportunity presented itself in September of the same On the 26th of November [1860] several palmetto flags year, when Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into were unfurled in Baltimore, one of them from the Maryland on its first exodus from Virginia soil.' steeple of the old Liberty engine-house, on Liberty Though the incursion of southern troops into Maryland is usually Street near Fayette, by a number of persons belonging styled as an invasion, the southern leaders thought of it more as a to a branch of an association of Southern volunteers./2 liberation. Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, provost marshal of the oc- cupied town of Frederick, was at a decided disadvantage in his efforts In the evening a mass rally was held in the hall of the fire station and to enlist large numbers of Marylanders in the Confederate army. The over a hundred joined the association. ,3 1st Maryland Regiment had been disbanded when the men's one- When President Lincoln called for volunteers, after Fort Sumter, year terms had expired. The Maryland Line troops were down in the war spirit in Baltimore rose to a feverish pitch. It is familiar Winchester trying to reorganize into a larger unit. Recruitment was history how civilians attacked the Massachusetts troops on Pratt disappointing, and even Samuel Arnold—when he, caught up with Street on April 19, 1861; less well-known is the fact that thousands them—merely camp-followed the troops without reenlisting in the of Maryland men were mobilized to prevent further passage ranks. He chose, rather, to seek out his brothers when the Con- of northern troops through the city and a clash of uniformed forces federates "fell back" to Winchester, following the bloody contest of was only narrowly averted. Units from around Baltimore and the sur- Antietam.18 rounding counties flocked to the city where they crowded the From Winchester, Arnold went to Richmond to locate his downtown streets. One of those units was the Baltimore Guards, brothers. George Arnold, the eldest, had been commissioned a cap- with Edward R. Dorsey as adjutant. During the period from April 18 tain in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States and placed in to April 27, Baltimore reached its highest wartime level of disloyalty charge of the office of the Bureau of Nitre and Mining in Augusta, to the Union.14 , where Charles was the chief office clerk. Frank had enlisted AUTUMN 1990 HISTORY TRAILS PAGE 3

in a Virginia unit and was serving in a front-line command. Samuel joined his brothers in Augusta. He alternated his service between of- fice work and field work and traveled on the railroad through Georgia and Tennessee to supervise the loading of home-produced nitre from limestone caves. This substance was moved to different repositories in 1863 to elude the advance of the Union army near Chattanooga. Arnold worked at• various commands away from Augusta but returned there in September." In early January 1864, the Arnold brothers received news from home that their mother was gravely ill. Samuel and Charles left George in Augusta and headed back to Baltimore. In his memoirs, Arnold devoted just a few lines to their journey, which took about a month. Riding the busy rail lines north, they arrived in Richmond where General Winder, the provost marshal, who was also a Baltimorean, told them that no passes were possible to the "States." They received rail passage to Charlottesville, where they began a hazardous walk, fraught with the danger of arrest by either army and being charged as spies. They pursued a secret route across the Blue Ridge, by an old trail through Symond's Gap. Then, they went through the Shenandoah Valley to Loudon County, evading federal patrols, and crossed the frozen Potomac River at White's Ford. They arrived in Baltimore in February." The warm welcome that greeted the boys at home was in marked contrast to the reception they received in the community. Samuel Arnold learned the bitter lesson that civil war teaches: loyalties tend constantly to shift toward the winning side. When Arnold first left Baltimore to go south, it was in the early "secesh" days; and when he again left in the summer of 1862, the South was riding the crest of a victorious year of campaigning. The spring of 1864 was much dif- Samuel B. Arnold at age 68 when he told his story in the Baltimore ferent. The South was on her knees. Sherman was closing in on American of December 7, 1902. Altanta with a strong and sizable army, while the newly promoted lieutenant general, Ulysses S. Grant, was poised to strike across the Rapidan to begin the final drive on Richmond. Samuel was aston- Arnold headed into town in search of amusement and companion- ished to find that former friends and neighbors were no longer ship. Boarding the coach that always stopped at Mrs. Feelemeyer's amicable. His reputation as a rebel was his ticket to oblivion in the store, he made his way on the Hookstown Road, past the new Druid downtown community. Not being one to "brook taunting insult," Hill Park and into Paca Street, where the city terminus was at the old he decided to seek his future elsewhere, far from the scene of shifting "Hand House" near Lexington Street. A short walk (if the omnibus sentiments in Baltimore." wasn't waiting) took him to his father's bakery. Rounding up a few The freedom and promise of the Great West beckoned. In June, fun seekers like himself, they spent the morning at the watering Samuel sought to join an expedition that was carrying settlers to the places that abounded in the crowded center city. Toward noon he Pacific Northwest territories. He left Baltimore and met the wagon chanced to be back at his father's, where a younger brother informed train when it reached St. Paul, Minnesota. James L. Fisk and him that , a friend from his days at St. Timothy's his cavalry escort were late to the rendezvous, and Arnold, low on Hall, was in town and desired to see him in his suite at the City means, returned to Baltimore, (Incidentally, if Arnold had joined Hotel. (Better known as "Barnum's," this large structure was two the western trekkers, it would have been a disappointment as they blocks away at Fayette and Calvert Streets)" were attacked by Indians and also returned to their starting point.)22 Arnold had not seen this friend, who had risen to the foremost Arnold then began a restless commute back and forth between the ranks of the acting profession, since their boyhood days at St. farm at Hookstown and his father's place. Soon his anger settled, Timothy's. Though it is doubtful that Arnold had entered the and he began to enjoy the quiet rural scene near the present-day dignified portals of the City Hotel on many occasions, the same Pimlico Race Course. In those times, farms stretched for miles in all could not be said of the young actor. Barnum's was a regular stop- directions. Arnold's florid prose best describes this time.23 ping place for Booth on his many visits to Baltimore. It was a "natural" because of its proximity to the theater district, which in- Imagination could conjure up no sweeter life than this quiet solitude, and for over a month I was truly cluded the streets around City Hall, as well as Front Street, across happy. The pleasures of the past resumed their former Jones Falls, in the neighborhood of Oldtown.26 status in my nature; Hived over again the halcyon days It was in Oldtown that John Wilkes Booth, as a boy, had lived with his family in a townhouse on Street. Summers were passed there, when peace reigned throughout the land, ere the rude tocsin of war marshalled foes to deluge this usually spent on the Booth farm near Bel Air in Harford County. By the time the Civil War began, all the Booths were gone from fair land in blood and ruin and I was allured under the false hope into the belief that it was happiness. Maryland. The father, Junius Brutus Booth, died just after John Wilkes entered St. Timothy's.27 But soon I found it was not so. The heart's yearnings could not be stifled; again, restlessness took possession When Samuel arrived to keep his appointment, he was taken of my being and the heart bounded to life again in the aback by the lavishness of the setting as he made his way to Booth's element of excitement, in which for three years it had suite. Upon meeting his friend of school days, he was truly amazed. run riot.24 Though he had learned of Bocith's phenomenal rise to eminence on the stage, he wasn't prepared for the personal magnificence of the In early August on a particularly "bright and beautiful morning' young man who greeted him. Booth, who had always demonstrated PAGE 4 HISTORY TRAI LS AUTUMN 1990 the ability to attract and hold admirers, both male and female, had 14. The best evidence of this secessionist sympathy that ruled matured into a truly remarkable figure. Called "the handsomest Maryland from about April 18 to April 27, 1861, is the factual man on the American stage" by many, his exploits with the ladies accounts to be found in the Baltimore newspapers. See the Sun had become fuel for the gossip machine, and his quiet confidence and Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser for that and elegant dress were in every way emblematic of a famous period; a somewhat biased account of a major participant is con- "star."28 tained in his book: George William Brown, Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, (To be continued) 1887), pp. 30-86. NOTES: 15. For enlistment of the Arnolds and E. R. Dorsey, see Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Maryland, National Archives; 1. Samuel Bland Arnold, Defence of a Lincoln Conspirator (Hat- for roster of Company C, see W. W. Goldsborough, The tiesburg, Miss.: The Book Farm, 1943), ed. Charles F. Heart- Maryland Line in the Confederate Army (Baltimore: Gug- man, pp. 126-127. (These memoirs were first published in "Ar- genheimer, Well & Co., 1900), p. 75; for Winchester see nold's Story of Lincoln Conspiracy," Baltimore American, McHenry Howard, Recollections of a Maryland Confederate December 7-20, 1902.) Staff Officer under Johnson, Jackson and Lee (Baltimore: 2. "Return of Arnold and Spangler, The Dry Tortugas Prisoners," Williams and Wilkins Company, 1914), pp. 22-29. Baltimore Sun, April 7, 1869. 3. File of the Bureau of Military Justice, War Department Record 16. Howard, Recollections, pp. 34-43; Goldsborough, Maryland File "S" R.B.P. 554, JAO, National Archives, Arnold, Defence, Line, pp. 22-27. p. 27; for families in downtown Baltimore see Matchett's 17. Arnold, Defence, p. 27; Compiled Service Records of Con- Baltimore City Directory, 1840. federate Soldiers From Maryland, National Archives. 4. Collections of the Fire Museum of the Baltimore Equitable p. 27; J. Thomas Scharf, History of Maryland, Society, Rosters ofBaltimore Volunteer Fire Companies, unpub. 18. Arnold, Defence, (courtesy Stephen Bernhardt). The neighborhood of Liberty (Baltimore: John B. Piet, 1878), Vol. 3, pp. 495-499 (contains Street, near the bakery, and the Libery engine house is depicted Bradley T. Johnson's "Proclamation to the People of Maryland" in "Stepping Stones," an 1856 print, Peale Museum MB3139. and a similar plea from General Lee for Marylanders to join the Confederates and reports the disappointing result). 5. Laws of the State of Maryland, 1841, Chapter 37. 6. Alumni Records, Georgetown University; for Dashiell's 19. Arnold, Defence, p. 27; for Captain George Arnold see Com- Govanstown school see U.S. Census, 1850, Baltimore County, piled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers who Served in Second District, p. 177 (courtesy Myra-Ann Rutledge research). Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, 7. Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Students at St. National Archives; for Samuel Arnold moving the nitre see a let- Timothy's Hall, Catonsville, Baltimore County, Maryland. ter from Captain Gabbett, Superintendent of Nitre Dist. 8 & 9; (Baltimore: Joseph Robinson, 1852.) For Arnold's early love of (this letter and others showing Samuel, Charles, and Capt. "the pleasures of life" see Arnold, Defence, p. 34. George in the Nitre Bureau is in Union Provost Marshal's file of 8. Asia Booth Clarke, The Unlocked Book, ed. Eleanor Farjeon Papers Relating to Individual Civilians, microfilm M345, Na- (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1938), 152-155. This book, a tional Archives). bittersweet biography of John Wilkes Booth, also contains his 20. Arnold, Defence, pp. 27-28. sister Asia's press clippings. 21. Ibid., p. 35. 9. Catalogue of the Professors and Students of St. Timothy's Hall, 22. Arnold, Defence, p. 28; The War of the Rebellion: A Compila- Catonsville, Md. for the Seventh Session, 1852 (Baltimore: tion of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Joseph Robinson, 1852). (Booth's stay at St. Timothy's is not Armies (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, documented but is mentioned in Mrs. Clarke's The Unlocked 1880-1901), ser. 1, vol. 34, part 4, pp. 478-479, and ser. 1, vol. Book, pp. 59-60, 153-155.) 41, part 4, pp. 882-883. 10. Arnold, Defence, p. 36. (Hookstown became "Arlington" ca. 23. Arnold, Defence, p. 36. 1870). See G. M. Hopkins, Atlas of Baltimore County, Md. 24. Ibid. (Philadelphia, 1877), Third District, Arlington, p. 50, shows 25. Arnold, Defence, pp. 36-37; "Goodbye Hand House," William and Oreon's lot next to large farm of William). Bland. Baltimore Sun, April 28, 1917. The Hand House is pictured Much of the Bland's history at their old farmhouse is contained with the commentary "Famous West Baltimore Landmark Now in "Bachelor Brothers Housekeepers at Old Farm," Baltimore Being Torn Down to Make Way for Modern Structure." Sun, September 9, 1930. (Mr. Bland's log farmhouse survives 26. George S. Bryan, The Great American Myth, (New York: Car- within the modern siding of police officer Ronald W. Starr's rick and Evans, 1940), p. 107. home on Winner Avenue near the Pimilico Race Course.). 11. Isobel Davidson, Real Stories from Baltimore County History 27. For the in Baltimore City and Harford County till (Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Tradition Press, reprint 1967), pp. the war years see Stanley Kimmel, The Mad Booths of Maryland, 117-122, 178-280. There are many references in the vertical file 2d ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1969), pp. 35-143, at the Maryland Room, Enoch Pratt Free Library, filed under 338-342; for the placing of John Wilkes Booth in St. Timothy's ``Hookstown" and "Arlington." Hall see Asia Booth Clarke, Booth Memorials in the Life of 12. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, Junius Brutus Booth (New York: Carleton, 1866), p. 159. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Evarts, 1881), p. 127; Harry Wright 28. Arnold, Defence, p. 37; Richard J. S. Gutman and Kellie 0. Newman noted this in his Maryland and the Confederacy, (An- Gutman, John Wilkes Booth Himself, (Dover, Massachusetts: napolis: H. W. Newman, 1976), but cited the wrong date, p. Hired Hand Press, 1979). The Gutmans' book is a handy source 192 (courtesy Myra-Ann Rutledge research). of references to Booth's contemporary admirers. His good looks 13. "Raising of Palmetto Flags" and "Meeting of the Southern and magnetic personality are important considerations when Volunteers at the Liberty Engine House," the Sun, November evaluating Booth's ascendancy over the women and men in his 27, 1860. life. The pictures in the book help to explain his power.