William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 1

[97] against ten thousand, in a strange and hostile city. Under command of Captain Follansbee, they begun their march. The mob increased in numbers. Stones, bricks, oyster-shells, and other missiles were thrown at them. Random shots were fired. Shouts of derision and yells of savage hatred rent the air. Still the gallant band moved on. No one skulked; no one thought of looking back. Washington was their goal, and the streets of Baltimore the way to it. Several men were already wounded with pistol-shots; two were killed; the time had come for retaliation. They had suffered with closed lips insults and indignities hard for brave men to bear; but, when they saw their dead comrades, they brought their muskets to the shoulder, and fired. Their shots told. Several of the mob fell lifeless on the pavement, and a large number were wounded; and so for two miles these brave, devoted men fought their way, and joined their comrades at the Washington Depot.

The killed were Addison O. Whitney, Luther C. Ladd, and Charles A. Taylor, of Company D, Lowell, and Sumner H. Needham, Company I, of Lawrence. Thirty-six were wounded, three of whom were Captain Dike, and Leander F. Lynde and James F. Rowe, of the Stoneham company.

The mob howled like wolves around the Southern Depot, where the regiment now was, and threw stones at the cars after the men were seated. Several of the mob were shot by our men from the cars while waiting to start. The regiment reached Washington at five in the afternoon, and was received by the loyal people who surrounded the depot with the wildest enthusiasm. Soon after, it marched to the Capitol building, and was quartered in the Senate Chamber, and rooms connected with it. Thus, under the roof of the Capitol, were sheltered the men who first marched to save it, and in whose ranks the first blood had been shed, and the first lives sacrificed in its defence.

The regiment remained in Washington until the 5th of May, when it was ordered to the Relay House,—a railroad station about ten miles from Baltimore,—where it remained doing guard and picket duty until the 29th of July, when it broke camp and returned to Massachusetts, and arrived in Boston