Mobs attacked the trains carrying men of the 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and Pennsylvania's Washington Brigade, hurrying toward essentially undefended Washington. The enraged Crabtowners started with stones and bottles and finally got out their guns. Most of the troops fought their way through, but quite a few got back on their trains and fled to Philadelphia and many others dispersed through the city and hid with Unionist residents.
When the smoke cleared three hours later, 10 soldiers and 11 civilians lay dead, and Maryland was on the brink of joining the Confederacy. President Lincoln sent Gen. Benjamin F. Butler (later to become known as "Beast Butler" for his administration of occupied New Orleans) to occupy the city and suppress Southern sympathizers. Butler clapped scores of citizens in jail, including the mayor, top cop, police commissioners, politicians, assorted newspaper editors and Francis Scott Key's grandson (who with intentional irony was imprisoned at Fort McHenry, in the shadow of the flagpole that had flown the Star-Spangled Banner)
