Hey everyone, welcome to episode 63 of our Civil War podcast, I'm Rich.

I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast at two o'clock in the

morning of May 25th 1861. Two US Army officers reached Hayfields, a large

estate in the Maryland countryside. They entered the manor house that was the

home of John Maryman, the estate's owner, surprising him in his bed and arrested

him. They then transported Maryman to Baltimore and he was imprisoned in

Fort McHenry. John Maryman was an important man in Maryland, the descendant of

one of the state's oldest and most distinguished families. He was a

substantial landowner, a gentleman farmer, a slave owner, a businessman, a

politician, and he was also an officer in a militia company of cavalry. It was

in that capacity that a month before in April that Maryman had led men in

burning railroad bridges and cutting telegraph wires in an attempt to

prevent federal troops from crossing Maryland on their way to reinforce

Washington DC. John Maryman's arrest led to a dramatic confrontation between

Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States, and Roger Brooke Taney, the

chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. In the tension-filled spring of

1861, Taney would use his judicial authority to challenge the president's

powers as commander-in-chief. At stake was Lincoln's executive power to combat

the massive rebellion that was breaking apart the nation. In his book, The Body

of John Maryman, Abraham Lincoln, and the suspension of habeas corpus, Brian

McGinney says that, quote, a century and a half later, the challenge issued by

Taney, and the response given to it by Lincoln, remained one of the most

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