Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

The first troops to arrive at the National Capital were four companies of unarmed and ununiformed Pennsylvanians, who came from the mining districts, expecting to find uniforms, arms, and equipments on their arrival at Washington. Stones were thrown at them as they marched through Baltimore to take the cars for Washington, where they were received at the station by Captain McDowell, of the Adjutant-General's department, who escorted them to the Capitol, where arrangements had been made for quartering them temporarily in the hall of the House of Representatives. The sun was just setting over the Virginia hills as the little column ascended the broad steps of the eastern portico and entered the rotunda, through which they marched. With one of the companies was the customary colored attendant, whose duty it was on parade to carry the target or a pail of ice-water. He had been struck on the head in Baltimore, and had received a scalp wound, over which he had placed his handkerchief, and then drawn his cap down tight over it. When Nick Biddle (for that was his name), entered the rotunda, he appeared to think he was safe, and took off his cap, with the handkerchief saturated with blood, which dripped from it and marked his path into the hall of the House of Representatives. It was the first blood of the war.

The next day came the old Massachusetts Sixth, which had been shot at and stoned as it passed through Baltimore, and which returned the fire with fatal effect. The Sixth was quartered in the Senate wing of the Capitol. Colonel Jones occupied the Vice-President's chair in the Senate Chamber, his colors hanging over his head from the reporters' gallery. At the clerk's desk before him, Adjutant Farr and Paymaster Plaisted were busy with their evening reports, while Major Watson, with Quartermaster Munroe were seeing that the companies were distributed in the various corridors and obtaining their rations. After a four-and-twenty hours' fast the men had each one ration of bacon, bread, and coffee, which they had to prepare at the furnace fires in the basements. The moment hunger was appeased the cushioned seats in the galleries were occupied by those fortunate enough to obtain such luxurious sleeping accommodations, while others "bunked" on the tile floors, with their knapsacks for pillows, and wrapped in their blankets. Stationery was provided from the committee-rooms, and every Senator's desk was occupied by a "bould sojer boy," inditing an epistle to his friends.

That night the censorship of the press was exercised for the first time at the telegraph office. Colonel Stone had seized the steamers which ran between Washington and Aquia Creek, and another steamer, the St. Nicholas, which had been loaded with flour and other stores, ostensibly for Norfolk, but which he believed would have gone no further down the river than Alexandria, where they would have been turned over to the Confederate quartermaster's department. Colonel Stone, believing that this seizure should be kept quiet, obtained from Secretary Cameron an order to seize the telegraph and to prevent the transmission of any messages which were not of a strictly private nature. When the correspondents wished to telegraph the lists of the dead and wounded of the Massachusetts Sixth they found a squad of the National Rifles in possession of the office, with orders to permit the transmission of no messages. Hastening to head-quarters, they found Colonel Stone, but he told them that he had no discretion in the matter.

The correspondents then drove to the house of Secretary Seward. The Secretary of State received them very cordially, and would neither admit nor deny that he had advised the censorship of the press. He said, however, in his semi-jocular way, "The affair at Baltimore to-day was only a local outbreak, for which the regimental officers, who had ridden through the city in a car, leaving some of the companies to follow on foot without a commander, were responsible. To send your accounts of the killed and wounded," said Mr. Seward, "would only influence public sentiment, and be an obstacle in the path of reconciliation." Then, having offered his visitors refreshments, which were declined, he bowed them out. They returned to the telegraph office, where their wrath was mollified by learning that the wires had all been cut in Baltimore. It was nearly a week before telegraphic communication was re- established between Washington and the loyal North, but thenceforth, until the close of the war, a censorship of press dispatches was kept up, at once exasperating and of little real use.

Meanwhile a general uprising was going on. Young Ellsworth, who had accompanied Mr. Lincoln from Springfield, in the hope of being placed at the head of a bureau of militia in the War Department, had gone to New York and raised, in an incredibly small space of time, a regiment composed almost exclusively of the members of the Volunteer Fire Department, which stimulated the organization of other commands. Rhode Island sent a regiment, under the command of Colonel Burnside, composed of skilled mechanics, gentlemen possessing independent fortunes, and active business men, all wearing plain service uniforms.

Communication with Washington was re-opened by General Butler, who, finding that the bridges between the Susquehanna River and the city of Baltimore had been burned, went on the steam ferry-boat from Havre de Grace around to Annapolis at the head of the Massachusetts Eighth. On their arrival at Annapolis it was found that the sympathizers with secession had partially destroyed the railroad leading to Washington, and had taken away every locomotive with the exception of one, which they had dismantled. It so happened that a young mechanic, who had aided in building this very engine, was in the ranks of the Massachusetts Eighth, and he soon had it in running order, while the regiment, advancing on the railroad, fished up from the ditches on either side the rails which had been thrown there, and restored them to their places. They thus rebuilt the road and provided it with an engine, so that when the New York Seventh arrived it was a comparative easy matter for it to proceed to the national metropolis.

Meanwhile, Washington City had been for several days without hearing from the loyal North. At night the camp-fires of the Confederates, who were assembling in force, could be seen on the southern bank of the Potomac, and it was not uncommon to meet on Pennsylvania Avenue a defiant Southerner openly wearing a large Virginia or South Carolina secession badge. The exodus of clerks from the department continued, and they would not say good-bye, but au revoir, as they confidently expected that they would be back again triumphant within a month. An eloquent clergyman, who was among those who went to Richmond, left behind him, in the cellar of his house, a favorite cat, with what he judged would be a three weeks' supply of water and provisions, so confident was he that President Davis would, within that time, occupy the White House.

One of the largest, the best equipped, and the best drilled of the volunteer regiments that came pouring into Washington when the communication was re-opened was the New York Fire Zouaves, commanded by Colonel Ellsworth. A hardy set of fellows, trained to fight fire, they professed great anxiety to meet the Confederates in hostile array, and they were very proud of their boyish commander. President Lincoln took a great interest in Colonel Ellsworth, and when Virginia formally seceded, he obtained from Secretary Cameron an order for the New York Fire Zouaves and the First Michigan Infantry to occupy Alexandria. They went on the ferry-boats, very early in the morning on Friday, May 24th, escorted by the war steamer Pawnee, and occupied the old borough without opposition.

No sooner were the troops on shore, than Colonel Ellsworth, taking half a dozen of his men, went to the Marshall House, over the roof of which floated a large Confederate flag, which had been visible with a glass from the window of Mr. Lincoln's private office. Entering the public room of the hotel, he inquired of a man there whether he was the proprietor, and being answered in the negative, he took one private with him, and ran up-stairs. Going out on the roof, Ellsworth secured the flag, and as he was descending, James William Jackson, the proprietor of the hotel, came from his room, armed with a double-barreled shot-gun. "I have the first prize," said Ellsworth, to which Jackson responded, "And I the second," at the same time firing at him with fatal effect. Before he could fire the second barrel, Private Brownell shot him dead, and as he fell, pinned him to the floor with the sword-bayonet on his rifle. Colonel Ellsworth's remains were taken to Washington, where President Lincoln visited them, exclaiming, as he gazed on the lifeless features: "My boy! my boy! was it necessary this sacrifice should be made!"

[Facsimile] E. E. Ellsworth EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH, born at Mechanicsville, Saratoga County, New York, in 1837; removed to Chicago before he was of age, and studied law; in 1859, organized his Zouave corps, noted for the excellence of its discipline, and gave exhibition drills in the chief Eastern cities. On the opening of hostilities, raised a regiment, known as the New York Fire Zouaves; was sent to Alexandria on Friday morning, May 24th, 1861, when he was killed in the Marshall House. He was buried in the cemetery of his native place.