Security· American Civil War
Garrison of Fort McHenry
A precautionary garrison of the famous Baltimore fort during the tense weeks before war.
With Maryland wavering and Baltimore seething with secessionist feeling, the government moved to secure Fort McHenry, the work whose defense in 1814 had inspired the national anthem, against any attempt to seize it. On 9 January 1861 a detachment of about thirty Marines under First Lieutenant Andrew Hays marched from the Washington barracks to hold the fort until Army troops could relieve them. No fighting occurred; the Marines simply held the place through the dangerous interval. The wisdom of the precaution would be borne out a few months later, when Baltimore erupted in the Pratt Street riot of April 1861 as the first Union troops passed through the city. The garrisoning of Fort McHenry was one of several such early protective deployments by which the Washington Marines helped hold the line in the divided border region around the capital.
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Record no. 388