The headnote on this broadside claims to be a “letter from Baltimore” describing the partisan riot that occurred on July 27, 1812, when a Georgetown newspaper, the Federal Republican, opened a branch office in Baltimore. The editors had made no secret of their determination “to persevere in exposing the errors of a bad administration, notwithstanding the declaration of war” (Boston Repertory & General Advertiser, August 4, 1812; Boston Weekly Messenger, August 7, 1812). Warned that there would be trouble, the staff and “about 50 of their friends” prepared themselves to defend the building from the mob. The promised attack was halted by gunfire and the rioters’ response with cannon from a nearby artillery company was halted by the appearance of the local cavalry troop.
Riot in Baltimore is a useful piece for considering the violently divided America that went to war in June 1812. Perhaps not until World War I, when newly grown government agencies combined with movie stars and newspaper networks to create an unprecedented enthusiasm for war, would some Americans again so fiercely detest any who might speak well of the enemy. We have seen this already in the furor over Governor Caleb Strong’s reference to England as the “bulwark of the religion we profess” (see The Bulwarks of Religion). Even period accounts of the Baltimore riot were partisan. The Portland Gazette stated that “the leaders of the late riots in Mobtown have undergone the forms of a trial and been acquitted. So much for the security of life and property in Baltimore” (October 5, 1812). The Boston Independent Chronicle was actually sued successfully by parties in Maryland for printing extracts on the Baltimore riots from other papers. It ran two pieces, first an apology and then an account of why it was sued, ending with a more mundane request for subscribers to please pay up their subscriptions (December 24 and 28, 1812).
The basic facts in the prose account on the broadside would probably have been admitted by both sides in the controversy. Disagreement would be over the nature and degree of the provocation, to which the broadside does not speak. Democratic-Republicans laid the blame on the incendiary writings of Alexander C. Hanson, editor of the Federal Republican, for starting the newspaper again after his first printing office had been destroyed (on June 22), and then for bringing a group of armed men (however distinguished and honorable) into an already explosive situation.
Of a handful of other broadsides on the same topic—including Most Horrible!! in Newport, Horrible Scenes at Baltimore in Newburyport, Baltimore Mob! in Exeter, and Madison’s Mob! in Boston—only Coverly’s sheet had poetry on it. The verses on this sensationalist broadside were probably written by a quasi-professional ballad writer or clergyman, quite possibly on Coverly’s order, to fill up the space under the narrative report. That might also explain the political neutrality of the text. Certainly the verse style and design of elegy, disaster, and execution broadsides are aimed at the public’s interest in the macabre and sensational. So little is known of the techniques of American ballad writers in the early nineteenth century that we can only guess whether the verses were sung on the streets or whether they were written as poetry in ballad meter to be recited in mournful monotones. If sung, a tune such as "Chevy Chase" might have been in the writer’s mind, as it was used so often for similar generalized piety, protest, and patriotism.
