Under the shadow of old Catoctin mountain we passed the Point of Rocks, famous in the Civil War as the place where Lee's army crossed for the invasion of Maryland in the Antietam campaign. A few miles beyond the course of the river turns from southeast to southwest and we sheered off sharply from the railroad. We crossed on the famous stone aqueduct over the Monocacy river. The character of the scenery changed quite as preceptibly as the direction of the stream. Through the drooping branches of the trees we saw on the north the rugged outlines of old Sugar Loaf peak and across the Potomac the undulating ridge of the southern spur of Catoctin, and when heights faded in the blue haze of a midsummer day, we bade farewell to the mountains. Henceforth our way ran through the lowlands down to the sea, the hills and river bluffs reaching an altitude of only a few hundred feet.
At Edwards Ferry we saw the wooded face of Ball's Bluff which gave name to a Civil War conflict which was second only to Bull Run in causing discomfiture to the people of the North. In this little fight the country lost a notable figure in the person of General Edward D. Baker, first United States senator from Oregon.
For miles along this portion of our route we ran without seeing a human habitation. A dense strip of woodland concealed the river from view and bluffs or marshy thickets interposed between the canal and the country to the north. Occasionally through the trees we caught a fleeting glimpse of beautiful meadows and cornfields of the Maryland farmlands, but these vistas were rare.
At White's Ferry, where on September 5th, 1862, Stonewall Jackson's army forded the Potomac, and while singing "My Maryland," marched gallantly on toward Frederick, we stopped under the highway bridge that spans the canal to replenish our supply of gasoline. Leaning over the rail of the bridge stood a native whose face was obscured by the shadow of a straw hat of immense brim. Over his shoulder was a fishing-pole of a length of thirty feet or more. He ignored our salutation when we approached, but after we had drifted under the bridge he crossed to the rail on the other side and inquired:
"Stranger, whar did you put that tub in this ditch?"
"Cumberland."
"By crackey!" And he sauntered down the road.
The history of this "ditch" is a commercial romance closely linked with the political developments of the last one hundred and fifty years. During the period immediately preceding the Revolutionary War Washington devoted his chief attention toward the opening of the west to colonization and for a cheap transportation route foresaw that navigation on the waters of the upper Potomac would offer a direct outlet for the products of the agricultural regions of the western country to the Atlantic seaboard. The alarm from Lexington in 1775, of course, put an end to all immediate plans for the internal improvement among the colonies, but after Burgoyne had been cut off at Saratoga and Cornwallis had been bagged at Yorktown, Gen Washington again turned his attention to the transportation problem. Before peace was restored he left the camp of the patriot army at Newburg and inspected the future route of the Erie canal through the Mohawk valley.
Washington shrewdly divined that a canal between Lake Erie near Niagara, connecting it with the Mohawk and the Hudson would open up a route that would be a dangerous competitor to the southern colonies in their trade with the west. Soon after he was relieved from his military duties he made a tour of exploration with a view of locating a route connecting the Potomac with the Ohio and the Great Lakes. His journal sets forth clearly his wonderful farsightedness and broad comprehension of the situation. Here is Washington's report of his transportation line from Detroit to Alexandria, Va.: (The spelling is Washington's).