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instantly, I will direct my orderly to take you out. Good afternoon, Colonel Lefferts.”
And that was the last communication that I had in person with Colonel Lefferts of the Seventh New York
The question has been asked me, “Would you have fought him if he had called upon you?”
and I have answered that I thought I should have been justified in doing so, and probably should have done so. The rebels did not believe that we would fight at all, and it would have been a good example to show them that we would fight each other if nobody else.
All these circumstances were known to two gentlemen who were connected with the New York Seventh. One was Major Winthrop, one of the noblest of God's noblemen, and the other was Col. Schuyler Hamilton, who had been in the service of the United States in Mexico, where he distinguished himself for gallantry and conduct, and was made military secretary to General Scott while in Mexico.
Both Winthrop and Hamilton were, then acting as privates in the New York Seventh, and Winthrop had enlisted for the time only which the Seventh had agreed to go to war. Hamilton was accepted by me as a volunteer aid on my staff, and I told Winthrop to serve out his time with the regiment, because those were the terms of his enlistment, and then to come to me wherever I was and I would give him a place on my staff.
This I did thirty-two days later at Fortress Monroe, Virginia.
I at once mounted my horse, and marched with Hincks and his two companies outside of the grounds of the academy, to seize the railroad depot.
All of the buildings but one were taken possession of without any opposition on the part of the keeper.
I asked him what this particular one contained.
He said:--
“Nothing.”
I told him to give me the key. He replied that he did not have it.
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
I ordered the doors to be forced, and they were driven in at once, and there was found therein a small, rusty, dismantled locomotive, portions of which had been removed in order to disable her. I turned to the men, who stood in line in front of the depot, and said: “Do any of you know anything about such a machine as this?”
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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