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Table of Contents:
Chapter
2
:
Harper's Ferry
and
Maryland Heights
—Darnstown,
Maryland
.--
Muddy Branch
and
Seneca Creek
on the
Potomac
—Winter quarters at
Frederick, Md.
[13]
probably full; Savage, 80; Curtis, 80; Cary (Lowell men), 80; Underwood, 82; Tucker, 33; Goodwin, not noted; Whitney, full; Cogswell, full.
The date of this paper (unfortunately it is a matter of surmise) must have been later than the fourteenth of May, for then, by the history of the Second, Captain Savage had but 42 men; but the whole record showed such numbers of enlisted men on the ninth of May, that an encampment became a necessity.
To my letter of the ninth, Mr. Copeland replied, that he would immediately start out to find an encampment; and “shall get into Boston sometime this afternoon,” h added, “with one found.”
Fortunately the ground on which Mr. Copeland happened was the historic Brook Farm, in West Roxbury.
Easily accessible, though isolated, its surface diversified with bill and vale, the spot was admirably adapted to all the requirements of an encampment.
I can bring before me now the commanding eminence for the officers; the level ground for the companies; the even and ample parade-ground for a thousand men; the extensive drill-ground; the appropriate buildings, from the protecting hospital to the instructive guard-house.
I can recall them in all the poetry of a romance which the pen of Hawthorne, in the wildest hours of his most exuberant fancy, could never excite in the pages of his Blithedale story.
I can see them, too, in a reality which has forever and forever exorcised the fitful play-day of the dreamers who preceded us.
Brook Farm is to me forever hereafter holy ground.
It has been consecrated by our occupancy, redeemed by the solemn tread of our columns upon its green sod; while its story shall live as an organ strain in the grand epic of American liberty.
Fittingly did the saluting gun baptize the new encampment.
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