Annapolis Capital Punishment

2009 is the year of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Annapolitans will celebrate Lincoln's February 2, 1865 visit to Annapolis with events on February 8th. A group plans to meet that day in The Powerhouse at the Loews Hotel on West St. at 1:00 PM. For details visit this Abraham "Link-in".

The following has been provided to CP by Eastporter Rock Toews who just wrote a booklet about Lincoln's visit to Annapolis that was published by the Maryland Archives. It has been edited for brevity:

WHERE LINCOLN WALKED...

President Lincoln made a sudden decision on the morning of February 2, 1865 to meet with Confederate peace commissioners at Ft. Monroe, Virginia, at Hampton Roads. The ports at Washington, Alexandria, and Baltimore were blocked with ice and parts of the Potomac River were frozen. In order for Lincoln to get to Ft. Monroe, he had to get to Annapolis.

The B and O Railroad provided a special train at their depot on New Jersey Avenue in Washington. Lincoln departed for Annapolis at 11:15 AM and at Annapolis Junction, the train switched onto the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad's single line for the 21 mile run to Annapolis, arriving at the A and ER depot just about 1:00 PM. The depot was located at the corner of Calvert and West Streets. Lincoln was met at the depot by the army's quartermaster at Annapolis, Captain Gardner S. Blodgett, who then guided the President through town to the steamboat wharf on the grounds of the Naval Academy.

Lincoln was greeted by the band from the army hospital on the Naval Academy grounds playing "patriotic airs of welcome" as he boarded the steamer Thomas Collyer, supposedly one of the fastest in the world at the time. The steamer left about 1:40 PM. The Thomas Collyer reached Ft. Monroe just before 10:30 PM that night, and Lincoln was reported to have been well pleased with the trip, noting that he had only been 11 hours in transit from the White House to Ft. Monroe.

After the Hampton Roads Conference concluded the next afternoon, Lincoln, Secretary of State Seward, and others returned back up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis. This time the President was on the slower steam vessel, the River Queen, departing Ft. Monroe at about 5:00 PM on February 3rd. The overnight trip took about 14 hours, and though the Thomas Collyer left Ft. Monroe about an hour after the River Queen, both steamers arrived at Annapolis at about 7:00 AM on February 4th. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had ordered a special train to be waiting at the wharf for the President and his party, and the A and ER Railroad had complied, placing the company superintendent's own private car and an engine at the wharf. The President and party boarded the train and all were back in Washington by 9:30 AM.

(CP NOTES: What I find remarkable is that this trip was done by railroad from Washington to Annapolis and the rail actually went down to the waterfront, although Lincoln walked because the end of the line was being used for military supplies. So he took a train. Then he walked. Then he took a fast ferry. Something none of us can do very easily anymore, or so it seems. Today a president comes by helicopter, but if he wanted to come by train, he could not.....same for us....not to mention no fast ferry. The story of Washington's last visit to Annapolis was recorded in his diary, but it involves a sailing vessel, as one might imagine... and he spent a cold, miserable night....aground)

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