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Samuel Arnold, a Lincoln Conspirator Part I

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Samuel Arnold, a Lincoln Conspirator Part I 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 Abraham Lincoln. President Andrew Johnson, 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 Baltimore 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 John Wilkes 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 Arnold family 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 Benedict Arnold, 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 London 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 Virginia 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 Colonel 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 Stonewall Jackson'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 Union army 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 militia men were mobilized to prevent further passage ranks.
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