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Doc. 29.-the affair at Harper's Ferry, Va.

Sandy Hook, Md., February 8, 1862.
About seven yesterday morning a flag of truce was displayed in a landing-arch in the railroad wall, just above the recent Harper's Ferry bridge, where an angular flight of steps led from the town side of the stone embankment under the railroad [80] track, to the river. The person waving the flag and calling for a boat to come over, was the only one in sight, and he was “colored.” A boat, with the ferryman, and a gentleman named Geo. Rohr, (a loyal Virginian, whose property had been destroyed because of his Union sentiments,) went over to respond to the summons of humanity.

As the boat neared the arch, Rohr remarked to the ferryman that the man with the flag of truce was not a negro, but a white man painted. Nevertheless, it was decided to land and see what was wanted. The boat was pushed stern foremost into the arch, Rohr being seated in the stern. By the dim light it was discovered that the stairway was thronged with men, and before the boat could be started forward a man, pronounced by the deceased to be Capt. Baylor, fired a musket, the ball taking effect in Rohr's right thigh, passing through the leg and coming out just above the knee. The wounded man, finding that he had been entrapped, fired his musket into the recess, when a second ball struck him in the shoulder, and, passing downward, came out below the right breast.

When it became known on this side that Rohr had been shot, our riflemen poured volley after volley into the landing-arch, and such places as the enemy might conceal themselves. The battery on the Maryland heights opened on the houses in the rear, and the pickets in Sandy Hook discovered a squadron of cavalry and footmen pushing up the Shenandoah road in the direction of Charlestown. A squad of foot-soldiers were also discovered on the Loudon side of the Shenandoah, behind the abutment of the burnt bridge, but beyond the range of our rifles.

The buildings which had concealed the party of murderers from view, and shielded them from the riflemen, had long been the rendezvous, day and night, of the enemy's scouting-parties, who were thus enabled to approach unseen and fire upon our pickets. Their destruction had heretofore been contemplated, but desisted from out of consideration of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, who had a considerable investment therein. Col. Geary, however, ordered their immediate destruction by fire, and failing to ignite them by shells, Major Tyndale detached Lieut. Greenwalt, of company F, Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania, with ten men, to proceed to the other side and set fire to them, which they speedily accomplished, bringing back several trophies dropped in hasty retreat by the murdering party, among which was a splendid Minie musket, loaded but not capped.

The houses fired were the Wager, Galt, and Railroad Hotels, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Depot, the Winchester Railroad Depot, Welch's store, the telegraph office, and the dwelling houses of Mrs. Wager, Mrs. Darien, Mrs. Ellen Chambers, George Chambers, and William J. Stevens — none of them occupied.

The destruction of this block now gives our pickets and battery men a view of the Shenandoah road from Charlestown, and will enable our men to protect the village, in daylight, from any clandestine occupancy by the enemy's forces, as well as give them a warm reception if they should at tempt to advance in force by their favorite and hitherto protected and concealed route.

The once populous town of Harper's Ferry now contains but seven families, all good Unionists, numbering perhaps forty souls, all told. During the shelling, these, as has long been customary, hung out white flags, and their domiciles were accordingly respected by our cannoniers.


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George Rohr (5)
Israel Welch (1)
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William J. Stevens (1)
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February 8th, 1862 AD (1)
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