Thursday, August 23, 2012

1862 August 24 Relay House, Md.


   
[from the diary of Charles Hay of the 23rd Ohio]

Relay House, Md., Aug. 24.
     We leave here the Balto. & O. R.R., being
within 9 miles of Baltimore, its eastern terminus.
We ‘switch off’ here at what is usually
called Washington Junction, and immediately
cross the Patapsco, over a fine arched bridge.
An accident occurring at Berlin, 5 miles
east of Harper’s Ferry, to a train in our advance.
we were delayed, so that, at this time,
(sunset) we might have been in Washington, 31
miles distant, had the accident not happened.
At Berlin and Point of Rocks stand the
abutments & piers of two bridges across the Potomac,
which is there a fourth of a mile wide.
They have been destroyed since the war commenced.
     At Ellicott’s Mills, 5 miles back, we were
greeted with shouts and welcomes, hundreds
lining the sides of the road, pretty girls
preponderating, they being no less patriotic than pretty.
The only disposition towards ‘secesh’, I noticed was in a
two girls walking with together one of whom when the soldiers
commenced cheering, turned her back towards us, while,
the other, though evidently a sympathizer, chided her companion for the insult.

 [transcript by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]

MSS 13925                                                                            

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.