P. Kane, and former Governor Enoch Louis Lowe requested that Maryland Governor Thomas H. Hicks, a slave owner from the Eastern Shore, burn the railroad bridges and cut the telegraph lines leading to Baltimore to prevent further troops from entering the state. Hicks reportedly approved this proposal. These actions were addressed in the famous federal court case of Ex parte Merryman. Maryland remained part of the Union during the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln's strong hand suppressing violence and dissent in Maryland and the belated assistance of Governor Hicks played important roles. Hicks worked with federal officials to stop further violence. Lincoln promised to avoid having Northern defenders march through Baltimore while en route to protect the acutely endangered federal capital. The majority of forces took a slow route by boat. Massachusetts militia general Benjamin F. Butler used the water route after learning about the troubles in Baltimore. He commandeered the P. W. & B. Railroad ferryboat Harriet Lane at the Susquehanna River crossing between Perryville in Cecil County to Havre de Grace in Harford County. Avoiding the riotous city, he steamed down the Chesapeake Bay to anchor at night off the Naval Academy at Severn Point in Annapolis. He landed his troops of Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island militia over the protests of Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks (1798–1865). He put some on the old Navy training ship frigate, USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") and moved it off shore beyond reach of easy attack. Recruiting some railroad workers and boilermakers among his soldiers, Butler had them rescue a small yard locomotive in the trainyards and use it to take cars full of soldiers up the Annapolis Line of the B&O Railroad to Relay Junction near Ellicott City, where it joined the Main Line going west to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia or south to Washington. The Northern regiments used this route to reach the train station (now Union Station near the U.S. Capitol). They camped that evening in the Rotunda, which was not yet completed. An additional unit was sent up Pennsylvania Avenue to reinforce the White House, where the President greeted them with relief. Marylanders sympathetic to the South easily crossed the Potomac River to join and fight for the Confederacy. Exiles organized a "Maryland Line" in the Army of Northern Virginia which consisted of one infantry regiment, one infantry battalion, two cavalry battalions and four battalions of artillery. According