This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[52]
Ferry and on these were loaded the wagons, ammunition and supplies, and the regiment started for Harper's Ferry.
The boats were lazily drawn along by mules up the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal to the Point of Rocks.
This proved to be a very pleasant and agreeable journey, the weather was pleasant and the scenery beautiful.
The Potomoc, with its many rapids fringed with trees and bushes, green with their new foliage, with hills and mountains making on the opposite side a background beautiful and picturesque, made a scene long to be remembered.
The canal wound along the bank at the foot of the mountains, which, as they neared Harper's Ferry, rose in steep crags and precipices with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad running between.
Arriving opposite the town on the 13th of March, the men landed, crossed the pontoon bridge to Harper's Ferry and formed in the street, on which stood the ruins of a United States' Arsenal, the scene of John Brown's exploit, which at that time was filled with rebel prisoners.
Then they marched back to the hill and encamped in Boliver, situated on higher ground above the village of Harper's Ferry.
As the command stopped here for a day, the men had an opportunity to look around the place.
The ruins of the government works, and the place of Brown's temporary confinement were viewed by all with much interest.
The men were now on the sacred soil of Virginia and felt that soon they would have work to do.
On the following day the regiment marched to Charlestown, the place where Brown was tried and hung, and camped in a grove on the outskirts of the village, to await orders from the front, where Banks' troops had been engaged at Winchester.
Many visited the field where Brown was hung and the village; inhabitants of which were found to be very warm and outspoken secessionists and confident of winning in the great struggle.
Company A was ordered back to Harper's Ferry as a Provost Guard, while the rest of the regiment marched on.
The regiment on the right of the Third Brigade was leading the column and when they reached the village the next morning some one struck up ‘John Brown's body lies a ’
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
Tufts University. provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.