Biography
Henry May was a United States congressman representing Baltimore, Maryland. He was detained during the September 1861 federal arrests of Baltimore political figures and held successively at Fort McHenry, Fort Monroe and Fort Lafayette. The detailed account dates arrest September 13, while other accounts describe the operation as beginning around midnight September 12–13; the existing September 12 arrest field is retained with this discrepancy explicit. Burke’s September 27 report says May arrived at Fort Lafayette the previous evening, establishing September 26 admission, rather than the former approximate September 1 placeholder. May’s brother John Frederick May and physician N. E. Smith described serious lung disease and the danger of a crowded casemate; the October 10 instruction allowed air and exercise. On October 11 Burke explicitly reported that May had been released and immediately left for Baltimore to attend his brother’s funeral. His signed undertaking required return to the fort if the Secretary of State called for it. The December 2 instruction discharged him from parole, not from continued physical imprisonment; the compiler found no further execution record of that later instruction. The July 18 House Judiciary Committee report, preceding this imprisonment, had recommended no action on an earlier allegation because its proponent supplied only newspaper accounts and no evidence. That finding should not be misrepresented as a trial or adjudication of the later detention. No criminal conviction is established by the cited case. Sources: Official Records, Series II, Volume II, printed pages 790–801, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n805/mode/1up and https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n813/mode/1up.
