Baltimore’s Unlikely Confederates

(NYTimes) ... Given these strong ties to the Union, it is surprising that Baltimore produced even one Isaac Trimble, much less another 5,000 volunteers for the Confederate military. So who were these men? Like Trimble, Baltimore Confederates had few ties to slavery or the traditional, rural way of life that Confederate nationalists often claimed to defend. Take, for example, the infantryman Augustus Albert, a 31-year-old, Maryland-born wallpaper hanger who lived with his wife and infant son above an ornament store. Or Jonas Friedenwald, captain in a Virginia regiment and the son of a German-Jewish dry goods merchant. Continued