2t>4 Southern Historical Society Papers.
of the interview, which was afterward published over the Mayor's signature. " The protection of Washington, the President asserted with great earnestness, was the sole object of concentrating troops there, and he protested that none of the troops brought through Maryland were intended for any purposes hostile to the State or aggressive as against the Southern States. Being now unable to bring them up the Potomac in security, the President must either bring them through Maryland or abandon the capital." There was a full discussion of routes by which troops could be carried around Baltimore and the party left with the distinct assurance upon the part of the President that no more troops would be sent through Baltimore unless they should be obstructed in their transit around the city. In the interview with the President reference was made by Mr. Simon Cameron to the injury to a Northern Central bridge. " In reply," Judge Brown says, " I addressed myself to the Presi- dent arid said with much earnestness that the disabling of this bridge and the other bridges had been done by authority, and that it was a measure of protection on a sudden emergency, designed to prevent bloodshed in Baltimore and not an act of hostility toward the gen- eral Government; that the people of Maryland had always been deeply attached to the Union, which had been shown on all occas- ions, but that they, including the citizens of Baltimore, regarded the proclamation calling for 75,000 troops as an act of war on the South and a violation of its Constitutional rights, and that it was not sur- prising that a high-spirited people, holding such opinions, should resent the passage of Northern troops through their city for such a purpose."
MR. LINCOLN EXCITED.
"Mr. Lincoln was greatly excited, and, springing up from his chair, walked backward and forward through the apartment. He said, with great feeling: ' Mr. Brown, I am not a learned man ! I am not a learned man !' that his proclamation had not been correctly understood; that he had no intention of bringing on war, but that his purpose was to defend the Capital, which was in danger of being bombarded from the heights across the Potomac."
On returning to the railroad station to leave for Baltimore, the Mayor received a dispatch from Mr. John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, as follows: "Three thousand Northern troops are reported to be at Cockeysville. In- tense excitement prevails. Churches have been dismissed and the
