Bloodshed On Baltimore Street

This article from the July 21, 1877 Baltimore Sun gives an account of the confrontation between soldiers and citizens in Baltimore.

BLOODSHED ON BALTIMORE STREET

A number of the detachments on Baltimore street were driven from the ranks. The scene from Front street up to the depot, Camden st., was one of terror. The firing continued at quick intervals from the armory's long distance up Baltimore street. Several times it was as though platoons were firing. In the neighborhood of Gay street the crowd was thinned out very much. About fifty or more persons seemed following the soldiers, throwing stones at them, and trying to get missiles on the Belgian pavement, in which they were unsuccessful. At Holliday street two young men and a newsboy were shot, and the windows of Chenowith's saloon, No. 93 West Baltimore were broken. The wounded at this point were carried into the saloon and Dr. Wamble, a surgeon of the fire department, was summoned attend them. In a few minutes they were dead or dying, while the floor of the saloon looked like a butcher's pen. Similar scenes were witnessed at several drug stores and saloons on the route.

The streets were quickly deserted and detachments passed on by The Sun office, still firing random shots over their shoulders with apparent recklessness. Some of the rioters lower down the street fired pistols. The detachment left nine killed and fourteen wounded on Baltimore street, the large majority of them innocent people on the sidewalks.

It is stated that of the 120 men who started in the three companies of the Sixth Regiment from the armory only 59 reported finally at Camden Station, the rest having been lost on the way.