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B & O Railroad Station
"No malice in my heart"
Antietam Campaign
At this intersection, President Abraham Lincoln spoke from a railroad car platform to Frederick residents assembled in the street on October 4, 1862. He had just returned from viewing the battlefields of South Mountain and Antietam and had called on Gen. George L. Hartsuff who was recuperating here from a wound suffered at Antietam. Lincoln was about to board a train for Washington. "I return thanks to our soldiers for the good services they have rendered, the energy they have shown, the hardships they have endured, and the blood they have shed for this Union of ours," he said. "And also return thanks not only to the soldiers, but to the good citizens of Frederick, and to the good men, women, and children in this land of our, for their devotion to this glorious cause; and I say this with no malice in my heart toward those who have done otherwise. May our children and children's children, for a thousand generations, continue to enjoy these benefits conferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet to rejoice under these glorious institutions, bequeathed to us by Washington and his compeers."
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station played a role in abolitionist John Brown's raid on the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry -- one of the sparks that ignited the Civil War.
On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, Brown and his supporters slipped into Harpers Ferry from the Kennedy Farm in nearby Washington County, where they had been organizing the raid since July. They seized the arsenal, killed seven men, and injured a dozen others. They cut communication lines, but a passing train crew telegraphed the news from Frederick. The next day, three Frederick volunteer fire companies organized as militia units (Independent Rifles, Junior Defenders, and United Guard) became the first out-of-state responders. They rode the train from this station to Harpers Ferry, where they patrolled the streets and guarded railroad bridges. After a company of U.S. Marines under Col. Robert E. Lee soon stormed the building and captured Brown and his men, Frederick militia units guarded the prisoners. |