Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2023 April 17

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April 17

Need sources for the citation

Good afternoon, need sources for a citation. The most important position was that of Maryland, because it was from this state that the district of Washington, D.C. was at one time designated as the capital. If Maryland had sided with the Southerners, the U.S. capital would have been inside Confederate territory. As events unfolded, the threat was very real: after a bloody skirmish with the 6th Massachusetts Regiment marching into Washington from Boston, the Baltimore people destroyed railroad tracks, threw locomotives off a slope and burned railroad bridges, thereby cutting Washington off from the rest of the Union. In response, Lincoln inserted troops into Maryland, which ensured that the state was forcibly part of the Union until the end of the war. Thanks in advance. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 19:04, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Where did you find this text passage?  --Lambiam 20:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Anyhow, try The Hub: Boston Past and Present p. 125. Alansplodge (talk) 22:45, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Or in more detail: Six Days in April: Lincoln and the Union in Peril. Alansplodge (talk) 22:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

http://militera.lib.ru/h/burin_sn/index.html --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 07:51, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Considering that the first sentence is an inaccurate description of the origin of DC, there can be no citation for this.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, see this. Alansplodge (talk) 22:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It isn't wrong, except by perhaps rounding too much. The part of DC that existed when the Civil War started was entirely Maryland territory when the district was created. The original district had been created from land donated by both Maryland and Virginia, however in 1847, some 13 years before the events described in the paragraph above, it had been returned to Virginia. To describe the entire process of DC being created and some of the land being retroceded to Virginia is outside of the scope of the narrative above. It is, like many things, at once both true and irrelevant to the discussion. It is not the history of how DC was created that is relevant to the narrative, it is the physical location of DC wedged between Maryland and Virginia, that matters. The reason that Maryland could not be allowed to consider seceding from the U.S. is that the capital city of the U.S. would then become an exclave within the Confederate States of America, a situation that plainly would be bad for the Union side of the war. The entire rest of the paragraph is correct, and the first sentence could be made more clear perhaps with a few wording tweaks, but it isn't wrong. --Jayron32 12:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you all so much for your answers! --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 17:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)