First Blood In Baltimore

The Indictment Of Samuel Mactier

Abstract

President Abraham Lincoln's victory in November 1860 ended one of the most divisive elections in U.S. history, and in the months before inauguration day, seven states left the Union. The resulting conflict at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, is generally considered the beginning of the Civil War. But the violence in Maryland between Union troops and rioters seven days later, known as the "Baltimore Riot," actually produced the first hostile casualties of the Civil War.