Arrest!

by Gary M. Petrichcik

Alfred Spates was President of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company from January 1861 to June 1865, a period when loyalty to the Union was a serious issue in the state of Maryland--and Spates was among those to fall under a cloud of suspicion. Walter S. Sanderlin, in The Great National Project, writes, "Alfred Spates ... was thrice arrested and detained by military authorities for disloyal activities." Harlan D. Unrau, in History of the C & O Canal, speculates that the first arrest followed the September 1862 Antietam Campaign.

The second arrest occurred following the Battle of Gettysburg and involved Spates’ claim of a visit to Gen. Robert E. Lee during that campaign. Spates apparently boasted to a William H. Hoffman that he had visited Gen. Lee at the Confederate Headquarters in Hagerstown, and Hoffman reported this to the authorities. On September 1, 1863, Spates was arrested and sent to Ft. McHenry in Baltimore to await trial by a military commission. The company Board of Directors on September 10 appointed Lawrence Brengle president for the duration of Spates’ incarceration, and Brengle and Director Joseph Bradley were sent to Baltimore to attempt to obtain Spates’ release.

There they learned from Spates that while he had, in fact, visited Lee’s Headquarters, it was not to meet with Lee, but rather with Charles Marshall, an aide of Gen. Lee. Spates and Marshall had been close friends in Baltimore before the war and Spates had hoped that Marshall could help both in averting his own arrest by the Confederates who at the time occupied most of Washington County, Maryland, and in protecting the interests of the canal. (Spates was a native of Montgomery County, Maryland, having owned a large farm on the road from Washington to Rockville, but he lived in Baltimore from 1846 until 1853.)

Though the charges against Spates were weak, Brengle and Bradley failed to obtain Spates release. Spates later claimed that he and the canal had enemies in Baltimore who desired to see him kept imprisoned. The company decided to appeal directly to Secretary of War Stanton who the board hoped would be more sympathetic to Spates’ case than were the military authorities. According to Unrau, Spates was transferred sometime after late September to a prison at Ft. Lafayette in New York harbor and was released on January 25, 1864 on special orders from Secretary Stanton, almost five months after his arrest.

A more likely scenario is put forth in a 1999 thesis by Timothy R. Snyder, "I Hope They Will Get Away Soon": The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and The Federal Authorities During the U. S. Civil War, where a military commission trial began in late September 1863. Spates was not convicted on any charges and was released sometime between mid-October and t he end of December to resume his position with the canal company. He was arrested again in January 1864, but the company only knew that he was mysteriously missing until the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser on January 25 1864 reported that he had been released from Ft. Lafayette on the order of Secretary Stanton. Again, he assumed the presidency of the company, which would indicate that the authorities were reasonably confident of his loyalty to the Union.

An interesting aside to Spates’ time at Ft. McHenry is that he wrote the company in mid-October requesting additional money, stating, "I have paid out over $1,000 and will have at least $1,000 more to pay." In 1864, Colonel William S. Fish, Provost Marshal of Baltimore, was arrested and court-martialed on charges of fraud and corruption for arresting citizens, then offering to intervene on their behalf for a fee, raising the distinct possibility that Spates had been extorted.

(This article was published in the March 2009 issue of Along The Towpath, the newsletter of the C&O Canal Association.)

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