In Maryland they do not breed slaves for the purpose of selling them as they do in Virginia, and yet Colonel Carroll and other gentlemen who regarded the slaves they inherited almost as members of their families, have been stigmatised by abolition orators as slave-breeders and slave-dealers. It was these insults which stung the gentlemen of Maryland and of the other Slave States to the quick, and made them resolve never to yield to the domination of a party which had never ceased to wage war against their institutions and their reputation and honour.
A little knot of friends and relations joined Colonel Carroll at dinner. There are few families in this part of Maryland which have not representatives in the other army across the Potomac; and if Beauregard could but make his appearance, the women alone would give him welcome such as no conqueror ever received in liberated city.
Next day the rain fell incessantly. The mail was brought in by a little negro boy on horseback, and I was warned by my letters that an immediate advance of M‘Clellan’s troops was probable. This is an old story. “Battle expected to-morrow” has been a heading in the papers for the last fortnight. In the afternoon I was driven over a part of the estate in a close carriage, through the windows of which, however, I caught glimpses of a beautiful country, wooded gloriously, and soft, sylvan, and well-cultivated as the best parts of Hampshire and Gloucestershire, the rolling lands of which latter county, indeed, it much resembled in its large fields, heavy with crops of tobacco and corn. The weather was too unfavourable to admit of a close inspection of the fields; but I visited one or two tobacco houses, where the fragrant Maryland was lying in masses on the ground, or hanging from the rafters, or filled the heavy hogsheads with compressed smoke.
Next day I took the train, at Ellicott’s Mills, and went to Harper’s Ferry. There is no one spot, in the history of this extraordinary war, which can be well more conspicuous. Had it nothing more to recommend it than the scenery, it might well command a visit from the tourist; but as the scene of old John Brown’s raid upon the Federal arsenal, of that first passage of arms between the abolitionists and the slave conservatives, which has developed this great contest; above all, as the spot where important military demonstrations have been made on both sides, and will necessarily occur hereafter, this place, which probably derives its name from some wretched old boatman, will be renowned for ever in the annals of the civil war of 1861. The Patapsco, by the bank of which the rail is carried for some miles, has all the character of a mountain torrent, rushing through gorges or carving out its way at the base of granite hills, or boldly cutting a path for itself through the softer slate. Bridges, viaducts, remarkable archways, and great spans of timber trestle work leaping from hill to hill, enable the rail to creep onwards and upwards by the mountain side to the Potomac at Point of Rocks, whence it winds its way over undulating ground, by stations with eccentric names to the river’s bank once more. We were carried on to the station next to Harper’s Ferry on a ledge of the precipitous mountain range which almost overhangs the stream. But few civilians were in the train. The greater number of passengers consisted of soldiers and sutlers, proceeding to their encampments along the river. A strict watch was kept over the passengers, whose passes were examined by officers at the various stations. At one place an officer who really looked like a soldier entered the train, and on seeing my pass told me in broken English that he had served in the Crimea, and was acquainted with me and many of my friends. The gentleman who accompanied me observed, “I do not know whether he was in the Crimea or not, but I do know that till very lately your friend the Major was a dancing master in New York.” A person of a very different type made his offers of service, Colonel Gordon of the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment, who caused the train to run on as far as Harper’s Ferry, in order to give me a sight of the place, although in consequence of the evil habit of firing on the carriages in which the Confederates across the river have been indulging, the locomotive generally halts at some distance below the bend of the river.
Harper’s Ferry lies in a gorge formed by a rush of the Potomac through the mountain ridges, which it cuts at right angles to its course at its junction with the river Shenandoah. So trenchant and abrupt is the division that little land is on the divided ridge to build upon. The precipitous hills on both sides are covered with forest, which has been cleared in patches here and there on the Maryland shore, to permit of the erection of batteries. On the Virginian side there lies a mass of blackened and ruined buildings, from which a street lined with good houses stretches up the hill. Just above the junction of the Shenandoah with the Potomac, an elevated bridge or viaduct 300 yards long leaps from hill side to hill side. The arches had been broken—the rails which ran along the top torn up, and there is now a deep gulf fixed between the shores of Maryland and Virginia. The rail to Winchester from this point has been destroyed, and the line along the Potomac has also been ruined.
But for the batteries which cover the shoal water at the junction of the two rivers below the bridge, there would be no difficulty in crossing to the Maryland shore, and from that side the whole of the ground around Harper’s Ferry is completely commanded. The gorge is almost as deep as the pass of Killiecranckie, which it resembles in most respects except in breadth and the size of the river between, and if ever a railroad finds its way to Blair Athol, the passengers will find something to look at very like the scenery on the route to Harper’s Ferry. The vigilance required to guard the pass of the river above and below this point is incessant, but the Federals possess the advantage on their side of a deep canal parallel to the railway and running above the level of the river, which would be a more formidable obstacle than the Potomac to infantry or guns. There is reason to believe that the Secessionists in Maryland cross backwards and forwards whenever they please, and the Virginians coming down at their leisure to the opposite shore, inflict serious annoyance on the Federal troops by constant rifle practice.
Looking up and down the river the scenery is picturesque, though it is by no means entitled to the extraordinary praises which American tourists lavish upon it. Probably old John Brown cared little for the wild magic of streamlet or rill, or for the blended charm of vale and woodland. When he made his attack on the arsenal now in ruins, he probably thought a valley was as high as a hill, and that there was no necessity for water running downwards—assuredly he saw as little of the actual heights and depths around him when he ran across the Potomac to revolutionize Virginia. He has left behind him millions either as clear-sighted or as blind as himself. In New England parlours a statuette of John Brown may be found as a pendant to the likeness of our Saviour. In Virginia his name is the synonym of all that is base, bloody, and cruel.
Harper’s Ferry at present, for all practical purposes, may be considered as Confederate property. The few Union inhabitants remain in their houses, but many of the Government workmen and most of the inhabitants have gone off South. For strategical purposes its possession would be most important to a force desiring to operate on Maryland from Virginia. The Blue Ridge range running up to the Shenandoah divides the country so as to permit a force debouching from Harper’s Ferry to advance down the valley of the Shenandoah on the right, or to move to the left between the Blue Ridge and the Katoctin mountains towards the Manassas railway at its discretion. After a false alarm that some Secesh cavalry were coming down to renew the skirmishing of the day before, I returned, and travelling to Relay House just saved the train to Washington, where I arrived after sunset. A large number of Federal troops are employed along these lines, which they occupy as if they were in a hostile country. An imperfectly formed regiment broken up into these detachments and placed in isolated posts, under ignorant officers, may be regarded as almost worthless for military operations. Hence the constant night alarms—the mistakes—the skirmishes and instances of misbehaviour which arise along these extended lines.