The Denton Arrests

The Denton Arrests. "Arresting … treasonable characters". , The Denton wharf, here on the Choptank River, was the site of endless steamboat traffic, escapes of enslaved people on the Underground Railroad, and the arrests of active secessionists during the Civil War., On August 17, 1862, the steamboat Balloon landed a company of New York infantry and a troop of cavalry here. The soldiers quickly arrested twelve prominent residents and transported them to Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Had the U.S. Army seized "treasonable characters," or was this an example of what states-rights poet James Ryder Randell termed the "despot's heel" in rural Maryland? One prisoner, Francis Gadd, was a paroled Confederate soldier. Another, Dr. G.W. Goldsborough, had been commissioned a Confederate officer. A third, William Holt, reportedly was "hurrahing for Jeff Davis" while a prisoner in Fort McHenry. Most of those arrested included merchants, doctors, and attorneys who were prominent leaders of the pro-South Democratic Party, as well as an editor Albert Gullett and the owners of the Denton Journal. The Journal had not advocated secession but had harshly criticized the U.S. Army for its suppression of the press and free speech and the imprisonment of dissenters., Desperate to keep Maryland in the Union and prevent Washington from being isolated in the Confederacy, the Lincoln administration sometimes overstepped Constitutional boundaries. It also, however, allowed slave owners, even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, to keep their property if they acted loyal to the Union. As a result, enslaved people increasingly "voted with their feet" to escape their bonds., [Captions:] , Anna Maria Evitts Cherbonnier, with son Joseph, watched as her husband, Dr. Peter Ovid Cherbonnier, was arrested in 1862 and taken by steamboat to a prison cell in Fort McHenry., The "Register of Prisoners" from Fort McHenry describes three of the men arrested in Caroline County, noting that prisoner Francis Gadd "hurrahed for Jeff Davis … and cursed ex [Md.] Governor Hicks," then refused to take an Oath of Allegiance., If the objective of the Caroline arrests was to intimidate other residents of the Eastern Shore, it was probably successful. All Eastern Shore newspapers ran news accounts, including the Cambridge Herald, above.