The last time the military was sent to bend Baltimore to the president’s will, it was 1861 and 1,000 soldiers slipped into the city on a dark and stormy night to hastily erect a fort and battery of guns on Federal Hill.

Their cannons pointed across the harbor toward downtown, sending a clear message: The city would pledge its allegiance to the Union or risk violence.

Now, 164 years later, Baltimore faces a new threat of occupation. President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that he will send National Guard troops to this city and others under the guise of cracking down on violent crime.

Maryland governors have called in the National Guard to Baltimore before, like Spiro Agnew in 1968 and Larry Hogan in 2015, when the city was aflame and there was unrest in the streets. That is not the case now.

Already Trump has executed such a plan in Washington, D.C. Through an extraordinary use of his executive powers, the president took charge of the city’s police, mobilized federal agents and ordered more than 2,000 National Guard members from D.C. and six states into the capital.

The president’s moves have been well-documented by citizens and media alike since early August. But with Trump making threats toward Baltimore in recent days, The Banner went to D.C. to see the occupation firsthand in the event he marshals his forces and marches them north.

The day started in Union Station, which has been a performative ground zero for Trump’s Washington operations. Humvees have been parked out front, and Guard members, who now carry firearms, have patrolled the food court and Amtrak and Metro train waiting areas.

Their presence was diminished Wednesday — perhaps because U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy held a press event there to tout new Amtrak trains and to announce the administration’s takeover of running the station — but they still had one.

Two guardsmen wandered the Amtrak and Metro waiting areas as soon as you stepped off the train platform.

On the second floor of the station’s main concourse, a handful of Guard members looked down as commuters came and went, largely ignoring the soldiers. Their presence didn’t deter diners from enjoying their Jersey Mike’s or Chick-fil-A, either.

At one point, as transit police dealt with a man that one officer said was experiencing a “mental health crisis,” a few Guard members stood idly by, seemingly unsure of how to help.

“I’m pretty sure our men and women in uniform have more important duties to fulfill,” said Malcolm Harris, a Maryland resident who commutes to D.C. for work, while waiting for his train.

Shouldn’t these folks be home with their families? There was no disaster to respond to, no riot or uprising to quell.

“It doesn’t feel really necessary at this moment,” Harris said.

Outside the station, it was a bluebird day, perfect for a stroll down the National Mall, which further showed the extent of Trump’s show of force.

Small groups of Guard members, toting fully automatic M4A1 carbines, made lazy, looping rounds about the promenade. They stood by shade trees and snack stands, looking on as groups of residents played ultimate Frisbee and soccer.

They gathered by the dozen on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and the base of the Washington Monument, looking bored and making small talk with passersby.

At times it seemed that the soldiers were the Mall’s real attraction, with some posing for photos with tourists. One Guard member, a younger guy from West Virginia with the nameplate “Grimmett” on his body armor, was stationed near the Lincoln Memorial and said he had probably posed for more than 30 photos that day.

Not all the photography was pleasant. Some D.C. residents were filming them or looking on with a disgusted look on their face. Others expressed their displeasure for all to hear.

“What are we protecting?” one civilian exclaimed to no one in particular as he walked past a group of soldiers making their rounds.

Their presence on the Mall would be like their presence in the Inner Harbor, standing sentinel over Phillips Seafood and the Harborplace pavilions.

They’ve been bad for business in D.C., too. A woman who ran a stand selling water and Gatorade said business had been “slow,” as in “real slow” since the troops came to town. A barista at a La Colombe coffee shop in Chinatown, where federal agents have been active with arrests and raids, said the same.

The White House says its takeover of D.C. has made the city safer. Some residents aren’t so sure. Lucy Sirrs lives on H Street, a usually busy thoroughfare, and said she doesn’t feel any more safe with the influx of federal agents or soldiers in her neighborhood.

“I’ve gotten the impression a lot of it is really performative and people are staying away from where there’s a National Guard presence,” she said.

It is, at the very least, a spectacle. Troops stand in subway stations, looking out of place in the Brutalist tunnels with their rifles and camouflage fatigues while commuters with backpacks and briefcases hurry by.

Just Saturday night they walked down 14th Street, a nightlife district full of bespoke cocktail bars and trendy restaurants, where they were met with a mix of counter-protestors and indifference from people enjoying meals at Le Diplomate.

“Everyone in the back of their heads, they’re wondering how much longer this will go on,” said Sam Schachter, a Bethesda resident who came to the Mall just to take it all in before going to his gym on K Street. “It’s just one giant distraction.”

The real fight for D.C. is playing out in neighborhoods away from the central tourist areas where the troops are stationed. Federal agents, most notably those from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, are teaming with city authorities to aggressively police certain neighborhoods, much like the jump out boys Baltimore Police employed a decade ago.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Trump’s tactics have lowered crime in the nation’s capital. While Bowser tried to distance herself at a news conference from the presence of masked agents and the military, Bowser said “we greatly appreciate” the surge of federal forces. Her remarks have drawn Trump’s praise and scorn from her party and constituents.

While D.C. is far more dependent on the federal government than virtually every other city (there are certainly political calculations behind Bowser’s remarks), it is difficult to imagine Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott would say anything positive about such federal intervention.

One man, who asked to be identified by just his first name out of concerns for his safety, said he thinks the president’s entire operation is meant to inflame tensions in neighborhoods where the majority of residents are Black or Latino.

“I was in Southeast [D.C.] yesterday, and the mindset of people, they fear for their lives,” said Cory, who works in commercial real estate and lives in Laurel.

“It feels like [the federal government] is just instigating,” Cory said, before offering a grim prediction. “I think a lot of people are fed up. We’re not going to lay down, so, yeah, there’s going to be bloodshed in the streets.”

If what is going on at the National Mall is representative of what could be the Inner Harbor or Harbor East, then what’s happening in Anacostia or Columbia Heights is a stand-in for places like Highlandtown and Brooklyn.

Early Wednesday morning, federal agents with their faces covered executed a drug raid near the border of Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant. Residents took to the streets and accosted them, shouting “Shame!” and demanding they leave the neighborhood, video from the Associated Press showed.

Some residents patrol the neighborhood on bikes, looking for federal agents, usually in SUVs with out-of-District plates. Lists of cars known to belong to ICE are posted on street corners and utility boxes, along with calls to action in English and Spanish.

“¡DEFIENDE NUESTRA COMUNIDAD! ¡FUERA LA MIGRA DE COLUMBIA HEIGHTS!" one appeal read, which translates to “DEFEND OUR COMMUNITY! ICE OUT OF COLUMBIA HEIGHTS!”

Even with acts of resistance like the one earlier that day, the neighborhood is eerily quiet for such a pleasant evening. Outside the shopping mall that marks the center of Columbia Heights, the buzz of mopeds, vehicle of choice for immigrant delivery drivers, is noticeably absent. It’s risky to be out and about, with videos of drivers being snatched and violently arrested making the rounds online

At a corner store at the intersection of Center and Ogden streets NW, one man likens the constant presence of federal agents in the neighborhood to being under military occupation.

But Washingtonians continue to hold the line. Grand juries are refusing to indict people on felony charges who were arrested for confronting officers, even when there is video evidence. The Washington Post reported that prosecutors failed to secure an indictment for a man who went viral for flinging a submarine sandwich at a federal agent from point-blank range, for example.

Takes on the street artist Banksy’s “Flower Thrower” featuring a Subway footlong have popped up across the city as homage to the man.

The resistance should not be surprising, said Lucille Murphy, who goes by Luci. Murphy, who has lived in her Columbia Heights apartment for 51 years and grew up in an apartment in the same building a floor below, said she and her neighbors have always looked out for one another.

Asked if she was scared of the federal government using more force, the 75-year-old woman said the question was backwards.

“I’m the one they ought to fear,” Murphy said.