On the occasion of this, my second visit, I rolled over the temporary railroad bridge into the old depot at Fredericksburg on a freight train, dressed—well, in the best store clothes that money would buy at that time in Washington.
I am not sure of the exact date on which I got into Fredericksburg, en route to Richmond; it does not matter much, as I do not pretend to have kept an accurate record of the dates, however, it was along in April or May, judging by my recollection of the weather at that time. McClellan's great Army of the Potomac was on the Peninsula only a few miles from Richmond, while Fitz-John Porter had been up to Hanover Court House, about half way between Fredericksburg and Richmond. General McDowell was in command of quite a large, but, as I recollect it, a widely scattered and very much mixed up force at Fredericksburg.
The problem was to unite McClellan's and McDowell's forces against Richmond. There was just this little gap of some ten or fifteen miles between these two armies, and it was this bit of neutral ground that General Anson Stager, of the United States Military Telegraph Corps, was so desirous of opening communication through, because the "Washington Government" could only hear from McClellan by way of the slow medium of dispatch boats across the bay to the nearest point of telegraph.
I was directed by Mr. Covode to report in person, with a letter to the Chief Engineer, or Superintendent, of the Richmond & Fredericksburg Military Railroad, General Haupt, who was recently the Chief Engineer and builder of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Exactly what was to be the nature of my duties I do not now recall, if, indeed, I ever knew.
I was shown to the Exchange, or may be it was the Planter's; anyway, it was the best hotel, located on the hill, on one of the principal streets leading out toward Marye's Heights. It was not a particularly hospitable place for me, because I saw at once that the young boy, who ran the office for his mother, was only there to collect all the money he could from the "Yankee Invaders," while the father and elder brother were probably in the Rebel camps outside of town, only waiting a favorable opportunity to return and scalp the boarders.
The town was full, literally and spiritually, not only of McDowell's soldiers, who were in camp all around, but of all sorts of strange people in civilians' dress—adventurers, sutlers, traders, whisky smugglers, strange women—in fact, the main street of the quiet, sleepy old aristocratic town was a perfect bedlam in 1862, as compared with my first visit in August, 1861.
That evening, before dark, I saw on the street a greater variety of life than I had met in Washington on any one evening during my stay there. These numerous hangers-on of the armies had been, to a great degree, excluded from the Peninsula, so they had swarmed up to Fredericksburg as the next best place for them, to be nearest their favorite regiments, and "on the road to Richmond," where they all expected to rejoin McClellan's army in a very few days.
In addition to the great number of officers and men of the army, there were several batches of naval officers from one or two gunboats of the Potomac Flotilla, which had sailed up the Rappahannock and were anchored below town.
Altogether, it was what might be termed a lively town. The ordinary, quiet population had been suddenly increased to 40,000 or 50,000 of McDowell's army and followers, which had settled down around the hills and the streets in one night, like a flock of bluebirds or crows at a roosting place.
During my walk about the town that evening, I ran against a crowd of contrabands on the sidewalk, who were watching with the greatest interest the antics of a pair of New York street arabs, or newsboys, who were dressed up in their rags doing some song-and-dance acts, to the great delight of the country soldiers and assembled contrabands. There was even an attempt at a theatrical performance after early candle-lighting. Indeed it was only after taps that the Provost-Marshal's Guard made any attempt to suppress the fun.