On that day forty-seven years before my grandfather, Mr. Francis Scott Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry.
The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.Howard died while in London in 1872.
On April 27, 1861 Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland partially as a response to the Baltimore riot of 1861, and in portions of midwestern states such as southern Indiana.
The first person to be arrested after this order was issued was Lieutenant John Merryman of the newly formed (1861) Baltimore County Horse Guards, a unit composed of southern sympathizers.
Merryman was accused of treason for destroying bridges and telegraph wires to prevent Union troops from marching through Baltimore to reinforce Washington, D.C. Lincoln's action was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S.