[Original]

The Government buildings were full to overflowing, they “bunked” every-where, and wild pranks these boys played, their love of fun leading them into many a mad frolic. The city was too small for their mischievous natures, and it was no uncommon thing to make a trip into the surrounding territory, bent on extorting all the sport they might out of what most of them regarded as a sort of a gala time. “But we are ready whenever we are called upon,” was their unanimous cry. The shooting of Colonel Ellsworth at Alexandria, because he tore down a secession flag, so short a time previous, and his prompt avenging, as you remember, had roused them to a sense of the hostility which was felt by those who sought to divide the North and South. Then the attack of the mob of Baltimore upon the Sixth Massachusetts, while being transported from one depot to another, was another proof that their brothers of the South had trampled friendly feelings beneath their feet, and that the fires of sectional jealousy were burning fiercely.

[Original]

Their journey lay through a hostile State, and sober faces succeeded the jokes and laughter of the past few weeks. The South was plainly up in arms, and that “rebellion,” which the whole North at first thought but the task of a few weeks to crush, began to assume the appearance and proportions of a long and cruel conflict.

General Butler was in command of the military department of Virginia.