Leaving the scene of conflagration behind, Lieutenant Jones made a hurried march toward Hagerstown, Maryland, wading through streams and swamps, and reached that place at seven o’clock on the morning of the 19th. There he immediately procured means of conveyance, and started for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, which he reached in the afternoon in an exhausted condition. The men were covered with mud and dirt, and were overcome with fatigue and hunger, having eaten nothing since leaving Harper’s Ferry. They were hospitably entertained by the inhabitants, and departed in the afternoon train for Carlisle barracks. Lieutenant Jones and his men received the approbation and thanks of the Government for their judicious conduct on this occasion, and he was commissioned Assistant Quartermaster-General, U. S. A., with the rank of Captain.
The arsenal buildings were immediately taken possession of by the rebel authorities, and used for the purpose of making and repairing arms, until they again came into possession of the Federal authorities.
THROUGH BALTIMORE.
A terrible civil war, destined to be without parallel for bitter intenseness, was now fully revealed. The curtain that had so long screened the enemies of the Union in their machinations against the Government, had been raised at Fort Sumter; and in the seizure of Harper’s Ferry arsenal, although its usefulness to them had been seriously impaired by the true hearts and hands that applied the torch, and rendered the darkness of night lurid with its conflagration, desolation and ruin had already began their march, leaving their footprints in ashes among the lovely scenes of civilized life, and rioting amid the legendary grandeur and time-honored places of the Old Dominion.
It needed but one act more to encircle us with the thunders of war—to plunge the nation into an almost fathomless ocean of civil hatred and revenge, and leave upon the pages of history the unhappy record of many an ensanguined field. The green sward of a happy, prosperous and free land only remained to be crimsoned with blood! The heart of some martyr freemen needed only to be drained of its life-blood, and the stripes of our old flag dyed a deeper crimson in the precious flood. Soon, too soon, alas! this last fatal act was accomplished. The day after the burning of Harper’s Ferry saw the streets of Baltimore red with sacred blood, and a nation shuddered as the lightning spread the fatal news from State to State.
For months threats had been whispered that Washington should be seized; that an armed mob should revel in the capital and drive Lincoln from the White House. These threats were not idle boastings, as the confidence, celerity, and preparation of the insurgents proved. While the country north of the Potomac was solacing itself with dreams of peace—while plenty was filling every coffer to overflowing, great preparations had been making, and that for a very long time, to secure the end they now had in view. Sudden, unexpected, like the deep tolling of a midnight alarm-bell, the news fell upon the country. Fear, amounting almost to panic, seized upon the people, and when the orders were issued for the instant assembling of troops, the rush to arms was proof positive of this deep alarm.
As in the olden days, the sons of Massachusetts—brave, hardy, fearless as their own sea-washed rock—rushed first to arms and responded to the call. In less than twenty-four hours, seventeen hundred men were waiting in Boston—armed, ready and anxious to march. The order came, and early in the morning of the nineteenth of April—a day memorable in the history of the country, as the anniversary of the battle of Lexington—the Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts militia, commanded by Col. E. P. Jones, of Pepperell, and accompanied by three companies from another regiment, attached temporarily to his command (comprising, in all, about one thousand men), left Philadelphia for Washington, arriving in Baltimore at ten o’clock, A. M. The same train also contained about twelve hundred men from Philadelphia, under the command of General Small. These were unarmed, provision having been made for their being supplied, in this respect, on their arrival at Washington.
On the arrival of the train at the President-street depot, the locomotives were detached, and horses substituted, occasioning much delay, for there was an inadequate supply. A very large crowd had gathered around, and though the reception was not one of courtesy, yet no one would have anticipated serious trouble.
Six cars passed in safety, before the fast-increasing mob (for it could now be called by no other name), succeeded in obstructing the track, and thus cutting off three companies of the Massachusetts troops from their comrades, besides General Small’s command, who had remained at the depot of the Philadelphia road. A hasty consultation was held, and it was determined by the officers to march the Massachusetts companies to their destination; and the detachment, under the command of Captain Follansbee, at once set out.
Then it was that the long-smothered fires burst out openly, and were not to be controlled. In the streets of the Monumental City, in the face of a little band of patriots, and in defiance of the civilized world, a secession flag—a mutilated effigy of the stars and stripes—was flaunted in the face of these Massachusetts men, with taunts and sneers, which they received in grave silence. Hemmed in, surrounded, cut off from assistance, the sons of Massachusetts were forbidden to proceed, and boastfully taunted with their inability to march through the city. Cheer upon cheer rang forth for the South, Jeff. Davis, Secession and South Carolina, and mocking groans for the tried and true friends of the Union.