Reading Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln, I ran across a quotation of a newspaper article from the early days of the Civil War. Background: a Massachusetts regiment marching through Baltimore en route to DC was set upon by a mob of Southern sympathizers. Bricks and bullets were exchanged; two soldiers and twelve of the mob died. A few days later,
"President Lincoln said to a Baltimore deputation that if the passage of U.S. troops was again obstructed he would lay their city in ashes. One of the deputation said that 75,000 Marylanders would contest the passage of troops over her soil. To this the President said that he supposed there was room enough in her soil to bury 75,000."
