Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

It was the original intention to call this rendezvous “Camp Union,” but Captain E. C. Williams, Captain J. P. Knipe and others very appropriately changed the name in honor of the patriotic and beloved Governor of Pennsylvania.

When the war broke out in all its suddenness, and Washington was cut off from the loyal States of the North by the riotous proceedings at Baltimore, there was an utter lack of military organization in Pennsylvania. The military system of the State had decayed and aside from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, there were very few military companies in the State fully armed and equipped. Of these only a few contained the minimum number of thirty-two men. But, as the appeal for men was disseminated through the towns and villages of the interior counties, the officers of such military companies as did exist very promptly rallied their men and tendered their services to the Governor.

Ringgold Light Artillery, Captain McKnight, of Reading; the Logan Guards, Captain Selheimer, of Lewistown; the Washington Artillery, Captain Wren, and the National Light Infantry, Captain McDonald, both of Pottsville, and the Allen Rifles, Captain Yeager, of Allentown, were the first to offer their services in an armed and disciplined condition for immediate action. When the Ringgold Light Artillery, numbering one hundred and two men, reached Harrisburg and word was sent to the Secretary of War of the presence of so strong a company at the State Capital, he at once telegraphed for its immediate presence in Washington, but for prudence the order was suppressed.

On the morning of the 18th, the day Camp Curtin was established, a detachment of Company H, Fourth United States Artillery, numbering fifty, arrived from the West, in command of Lieutenant Pemberton.

The five volunteer companies, first to report at Camp Curtin, were promptly mustered into the United States service by Captain, afterwards Colonel Seneca G. Simmons, of the Seventh United States Infantry, and the regulars, mentioned above, and these volunteers departed on the same train for Fort McHenry, to assist in the defense of Washington.

The volunteers marched through Baltimore, then filled with Southern sympathizers, ready and eager to obstruct their passage through the city. On leaving the cars at Bolton station to march to the Camden station, a battalion was formed. As the march began the Baltimore police appeared in large force, headed by Marshall Kane, followed by a mob, who at once attacked the volunteers and were countenanced by the police sent to give safe conduct through the city. The troops were ordered to maintain their discipline.

When in the center of the city, the regulars under Lieutenant Pemberton marched off toward Fort McHenry leaving the volunteers to pursue their march to Camden station. This seemed to be a signal to the mob, and at once the air was filled with flying missiles, while every species of oath and imprecation were flung at the volunteers as they marched forward. Not a man made a reply, but steadily, sternly, and undauntedly the five companies of Pennsylvanians moved over the cobble-stoned streets of the city. At every step the mob increased, but with unblanched faces and martial step the brave men never for one moment wavered, marching like veterans as the mob gave way before and around them as they forced their passage to the depot.

The mob believed that a portion of the Logan Guards carried loaded guns, because their half-cocked pieces displayed percussion caps, but in reality there was not a load of powder and ball in the entire five companies. Nevertheless, the feint of displaying the caps, which was done partly as a jest on leaving the cars at Bolton Station, saved the men from the bloody attack which was hurled the next day at the force of Massachusetts troops passing through the city. As it was, when the troops were boarding the cars at Camden station, the infuriated rabble who had dogged their steps, hurled bricks, stones, clubs and mud into their disorganized ranks, without, fortunately, injuring a single volunteer.

Attempts were made to throw the cars from the track, to detach the locomotive, and even to break the driving mechanism of the engine, all of which failed, and the train pulled out of the station amid the demoniac yells of the disappointed ruffians whose thirst for blood was now aroused to a savage fury.

The solicitude of Governor Curtin for the safe transportation of these troops through Baltimore was intense. He remained at the telegraph office in Harrisburg receiving dispatches which depicted the stirring scenes in the streets of Baltimore. When it was finally announced that the trains had passed out of reach of their assailants with the men safely aboard, he emphatically declared that not another Pennsylvania soldier should march through Baltimore unarmed, but fully prepared to defend himself.