He looked at his friends and neighbors, his own family huddled in the crowd, and knew something would have to be done. They could not just stand here like sheep waiting for the slaughter, praying that the good mercies of their white neighbors would see them through. Yes, most of them were good neighbors, but one lone wolf could still slaughter them all or take them back into slavery.

He had never known that bitter bondage. He was a skilled man, helping to oversee one of the rolling mills that turned out iron plate for the navy. He would die before a slave catcher would ever place a hand upon him, or his skills would ever be turned to feeding the Confederate cause.

"Major, which way is your army fleeing?"

"Some to McHenry, others on the road north, following the tracks of the Philadelphia and Wilmington Railroad. Why?"

"I'm leaving," John announced, his voice raised so all could hear. "I'm taking my family and going north."

The major looked at him and men nodded with approval.

"Don't go down to the Fort There will most likely be fighting there. Boats are already taking many out; I doubt though if they will allow you colored to board. Get on the road north and stay on it. There are some troops moving on it who should protect you."

"We'll protect ourselves," John said harshly. "Some of us have guns."

"Don't do that; you know what will happen if you are caught with weapons."

"Major, if you were me, wouldn't you carry a gun?"

The major, taking no insult as some white folk would have, looked at John and men smiled.

"The army, as you know, is recruiting for colored regiments. Go to Wilmington. Better yet, Philadelphia, where the recruiting and training camps are for the colored regiments. Go there, become a soldier, then come back and fight to liberate Baltimore from the Confederates!"

John listened but said nothing. For the moment all he cared for was to get the hell out of this town and move his family to safety.

John left the pulpit, garnered his wife and three children under his arms, and headed for the door.

‘I’m leaving now," he shouted "Any who want to go with me, pack up some food, leave everything else behind, and let's get out of this God-cursed city before the rebels get here."

Near Federal Hill, Baltimore

July 21, 1863 3:45 PM.

Brown, things are getting out of control!" Former police commissioner Kane came staggering into the hotel lobby they had established as temporary headquarters for their new "Sons of Liberty" militia.

Hundreds had rallied to their call in the hours just before dawn. Street fighting had erupted almost immediately. At first it was nothing more than scuffles, taunts, which had then moved to boys throwing "horse apples," to an occasional brick, and in short order had escalated to showers of rocks, men armed with clubs, and in the final step to pistols, rifles, and now several artillery pieces taken by both sides from the regular troops who were now only themselves trying to get out of the way.

The sound of glass shattering was a continual accompaniment to the cacophony of noises, intermixed with gunfire, screams, the panicked braying of mules, the pitiful shrieks of wounded horses, one team trapped under an overturned carriage that had crashed into a building burning across the street

Kane stood in the doorway, blood pouring down the side of his face, which was puffed up, swollen from where he had been struck by a piece of cobblestone. A bullet nicked the frame of the open doorway, splinters flying. Another round hit the chandelier over Brown's table, shattered crystals raining down.

A volley erupted, ragged, the report greeted by guttural cheers. A group of men stormed out of an alleyway alongside the hotel, charging across the street, colliding with a mob of Loyal Leaguers, who turned and started to run. Brown stood up, watching the mad scuffle, musket and pistol butts rising and falling. A giant of a man armed with a pickax handle fighting like Samson in the middle of the fray, going down, a moment later his body rising back up, held aloft by half a dozen men, several boys looping a coil of rope around his neck, throwing the other end over a lamppost and then straining to hoist the dying man aloft.

Disgusted, Brown turned away.

"It's this way all over the city," Kane gasped. "Murders, beatings, reports of rape; entire blocks are burning now. My God, the city has gone insane."

Brown, obviously overwhelmed, could not speak. He knew this was far beyond anything he could have ever imagined. Yes, there would be fighting, but these were neighbors before the war, friends even. Have two years of this war so coarsened all of us that we have sunk to this? he thought. All the talk of glory and freedom now tasted bitter and stale.

"Can't we stop it?" Brown asked weakly.

"Not now," Kane shouted as an explosion down the block rocked them, flames gushing out of a tavern. Several men \ were running out of the open doors, as if emerging from the pit of hell, their entire bodies on fire. They ran shrieking, flailing, then collapsing.

"Hate, liquor, half the mob out there is drunk, the other half drunk on blood."

Brown lowered his head.

"What are the Yankee troops doing?"

"Fort McHenry is threatening to open fire. The road down to the fort, however, is packed with refugees."

A "Son of Liberty," Brown recognized him as a former police captain, came through the door, eyes wide, the stench of liquor on his breath.

"The niggers are rioting" he shouted. "They're killing white folk!"

Brown looked at him, incredulous.

Before he could even respond, the man was back out the door, holding a pistol aloft, shouting for men to follow him.

Brown retreated back to his table in the comer of the lobby and slumped into his chair, covering his face.

If this was war, he wanted nothing to do with it It had all sounded so bright and wonderful last night In his fantasies, it would be done with chivalry, a few dead perhaps, but done cleanly, the cowardly Yankees fleeing under a gauntlet of taunts, the Loyal League retreating to their basements to hide, the gallant Army of Northern Virginia, with Lee at the fore, riding into the center of town, where he, as the provisional mayor, would ceremoniously hand him the keys to the city.

Another explosion rocked the room, but he did not even bother to look up.

Outskirts of Baltimore

July 21,1863 4:00 P.M.

General Lee, I think we should hold back here for the moment," Walter Taylor announced, coming up to the general's side.

Reluctantly, Lee found he had to agree. They were into the edge of the city, a district of neatly built homes. He did not recognize the neighborhood; it must have been built after his tenure supervising the building of fortifications for the defense of Baltimore. So ironic that the very defenses he helped to build and upgrade were now the object of his attack.

If the fortifications were properly garrisoned, he knew there would be a formidable battle ahead. So far, however, his hope that the outnumbered, second-rate garrison would take flight seemed to be coming to pass.

He always had a fondness for this town, Southern in so many ways, but also bustling, sophisticated, with orchestras, theaters-a place of culture. It had been a comfortable posting.

He did not recognize any of it now.

Crowds were out in the street and panic was in the air. McLaws's men had stormed up and over the outer perimeter of fortifications with ease; barely a shot was fired. The men were exuberant, for the works were indeed extensive though nowhere near as well designed as Washington's, and to the last instant there had been fear that somehow it was a trap, that the guns, visible in their emplacements, would suddenly open up, turning an easy advance into a shambles.