On This Day
1861 – Maryland in the American Civil War: Maryland’s House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union.[10]
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states, straddling the South and North. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America, Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Because the state bordered the District of Columbia and the strong desire of the opposing factions within the state to sway public opinion towards their respective causes, Maryland played an important role in the war. Newly elected 16th President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865, served 1861–1865), suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus from Washington DC to Philadelphia, PA; and he dismissed Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (a Maryland native) of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Ex parte Merryman” decision in 1861 concerning freeing John Merryman, a prominent Southern sympathizer from Baltimore County arrested by the military and held in Fort McHenry (then nicknamed the “Baltimore Bastille”). The Chief Justice (not in a decision with the other justices) had held that the suspension was unconstitutional and could only be done by Congress and would leave lasting civil and legal scars.[1] The decision was filed in the U.S. Circuit Court for Maryland by Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, a Marylander from Frederick and former member of the administration of the seventh President Andrew Jackson, who had nominated him two decades earlier.
The first fatalities of the war happened during the Baltimore Civil War Riots of Thursday/Friday, April 18–19, 1861, on the waterfront piers adjacent to Pratt and President Street, between the President Street Station and the Camden Street Station. A year and a half later, the single bloodiest day of combat in American military history occurred during the first major Confederate invasion of the North in the Maryland Campaign, just north above the Potomac River near Sharpsburg in Washington County, at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. Preceded by the pivotal skirmishes at three mountain passes of Crampton, Fox and Turner’s Gaps to the east in the Battle of South Mountain, Antietam (also known in the South as the Battle of Sharpsburg), though tactically a draw, was strategically enough of a Union victory in the second year of the war to give 16th President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue in September 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation, taking effect January 1, 1863, which declared slaves in the rebelling states of the Confederacy (but not those in the areas already occupied by the Union Army or in border slave states like Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri) to be “henceforth and forever free”.
In July 1864 the Battle of Monocacy was fought near Frederick, Maryland as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Monocacy was a tactical victory for the Confederate States Army but a strategic defeat, as the one-day delay inflicted on the attacking Confederates cost rebel General Jubal Early his chance to capture the Union capital of Washington, D.C.
Across the state, some 50,000 citizens signed up for the military, with most joining the United States Army. Approximately a tenth as many enlisted to “go South” and fight for the Confederacy. The most prominent Maryland leaders and officers during the Civil War included Governor Thomas H. Hicks who, despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding, and Confederate Brigadier General George H. Steuart, who was a noted brigade commander under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Abolition of slavery in the State of Maryland came before the end of the war, with a new third constitution voted approval in 1864 by a small majority of Radical Republican Unionists then controlling the nominally Democratic state. Animosity against Lincoln would remain, and Marylander John Wilkes Booth would assassinate President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, then fleeing and hiding in southern Maryland for a week hunted by Federal troops before slipping across the Potomac and later shot in a Virginia barn.
Born On This Day
1894 – Marietta Blau, Austrian physicist and academic (d. 1970)[28]
Marietta Blau (29 April 1894 – 27 January 1970) was an Austrian physicist credited with developing photographic nuclear emulsions that were usefully able to image and accurately measure high-energy nuclear particles and events, significantly advancing the field of particle physics in her time. For this, she was awarded the Lieben Prize by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. As a Jew, she was forced to flee Austria when Nazi Germany annexed it in 1938, eventually making her way to the United States. She was nominated for Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry for her work, but did not win. After her return to Austria, she won the Erwin Schrödinger Prize from the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
FYI
NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day
Rare Historical Photos: The fascinating Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s portraits made out of fruits, vegetables and fish, 1563-1591
Rare Historical Photos: Stunning color postcards show the idyllic life at end of the 19th century Norway, 1890
By Matt Goff, Sitka Nature: April Sun, Showers, and Rainbows
By Matt Goff, Sitka Nature: Blustery Gray Day
By Matt Goff, Sitka Nature: April Opens Overcast
By Matt Goff, Sitka Nature: Mossy Green Riparian Forest
By David Grimm, Science.org: Your dog’s breed doesn’t determine its personality, study suggests Work challenges popular idea that breeds have specific, reliable behaviors
By Codie Sanchez, The Hustle: 3 eggcellent cash flow opportunities Egg prices are way up. Here’s how you can cash in.
National Science Foundation: Rewriting the history books: Why the Vikings left Greenland
By Josh Jones, Open Culture: Hear The Beatles’ Abbey Road with Only Paul McCartney’s Bass: You Won’t Believe How Good It Sounds
By Ayun Halliday, Open Culture: Watch Sir Ian McKellen’s 1979 Master Class on Macbeth’s Final Monologue
By Open Culture: Dracula Daily: Get the Classic Novel Dracula Delivered to Your Email Inbox, in Small Chunks
By Josh Jones, Open Culture: Jon Kabat-Zinn Presents an Introduction to Mindfulness (and Explains Why Our Lives Just Might Depend on It)
The Turquoise Table
Community/neighbor building idea.
By Laura Kinny, Smithsonian Magazine: How an Expedition to the Galápagos Islands Saved One of the World’s Largest Natural History Museums A soon-to-be digitized and publicly accessible collection of specimens helped resurrect the California Academy of Sciences.
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Recipes
Little House Big Alaska: Crispy Air Fryer Mushrooms
By Morgan Baker, The Spruce Eats: John Wayne Casserole Recipe
Just the Recipe: Paste the URL to any recipe, click submit, and it’ll return literally JUST the recipe- no ads, no life story of the writer, no nothing EXCEPT the recipe.
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RecipeTinEats
- Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel June 12, 2026Firstly, thank you for the Jaffle love. 🥰 Hit the Jaffle button above to see what he got up to today! Secondly – cake. Specifically, Coffee Cake! A classic crumb cake with a jammy cinnamon ribbon, loaded with lots and lots of nubbly, extra crunchy cinnamon streusel. Outrageously good. Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel This... […]Nagi
- Introducing Jaffle! June 10, 2026Meet Jaffle! Future Chief Taste Tester. Son of a Dozer friend. A little bundle of golden, fluffy joy! 48 hours of instant happiness I didn’t expect to get a new puppy so soon after saying goodbye to Dozer. To be honest, I wasn’t sure when I’d be ready. And I had it in my head... […]Nagi
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- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 13 June 13, 2026Picture of the day An image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on a stained-glass window located in a church in St. Peters, Missouri. Today is the feast day of the Immaculate Heart in the Roman Catholic Church.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 12 June 12, 2026Picture of the day A memorial to victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in front the Stonewall Inn in New York City. On June 12, 2016, a terrorist shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, USA.
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