SIIIIIL

ARRIVAL ⋆ AT ⋆ THE ☀ CAPITAL OF ✯

THE FIRST BODY OF PA. TROOPS.

An Excited Mob.-The First Blood Shed North of Fort Sumter. BY WILLIAM F. M'KAY, 25th PA. REGIMENT.

WO years previous to the bombardment of Fort Sumter the military spirit of Lewistown, Pa., was revived by the formation of a company of light infantry. The ranks were filled by young men from the best families in the community. On the morning of the sixteenth day of April, 1861, Governor Curtin called upon our com

pany for service.

The summons was obeyed promptly. Our total number was fifty-one men, including officers. Captain Selheimer increased this number to one hundred and four men in the space of two hours. We took our departure that night for Harrisburg, and were the first company to arrive there. We were speedily joined by four other companies of the Pennsylvania National Guards, the Washington Artillery and National Light Infantry, of Pottsville, the Ringgold Artillery, of Reading, and the Allen Infantry, of Allentown. Our men were only partly armed, and what few muskets we had were turned into the State Arsenal, and for some unaccountable reason we were loaded on the cars, entirely unarmed, to pass through the then disloyal city of Baltimore. We were accompanied by a detachment of forty regulars, whose destination was Fort McHenry, Baltimore.

The city of Baltimore was under the control of the Secessionists and an infuriated mob, frenzied with passion and liquor, who awaited our coming. As we disembarked from the

cars we were surrounded by a hooting, yelling crowd, who lavished the most opprobrious epithets upon us. Our line of march was formed with the "Logan" Guards on the right, preceded by a part of the regulars, who accompanied us a part of the way. A line of Marshal Kane's police was on each side of us. The streets and sidewalks were jammed with people, and at every cross street we were met by fresh masses, who hurled bricks and paving stones at us. The line of the police was nearly broken at several points. Doorways and windows were filled and many secession flags met our gaze. Indeed, the only national flag that could be seen was at Fort McHenry. Had the rioters organized as they did two days later, when the 6th Mass. Regt. fought their way through this city, they would have annihilated our command.

A colored servant of the Pottsville companies was the first man on our side to shed his blood, north of Fort Sumter. He was knocked down by a paving stone and his head badly cut. We were put into freight cars at the Washington depot, and it was then that the mob seemed more ferocious than ever. Some mounted the decks of the cars, and by jumping on them attempted to break them through. A continual stream of missiles was flying through the openings of the cars; they attempted to tear up the track and several times uncoupled the engine from our train.

Some of our boys were hard to restrain under all these insults and abuse, and two of them jumped out and offered to fight any two men in the crowd. This seemed to please them somewhat and they said that we might go on, but that they would give the "Massachusetts Yankees h-1." After many delays, we were once more on the move, and at 7 P. M. arrived in Washington. We were silently marched to the Capitol Building, where we were reviewed by Major, afterwards General McDowell. We had our headquarters in the hall of the House of Representatives. That night was our first experience in the art of eating wormy pork and hard-tack. One of our members, who was fully six feet in height, actually shed tears because he had no sugar on his bread. This young man was afterwards a captain in the gallant 96th Pa. Vols., but he is called "Sugar Jim" to this day.

Early on the following morning our first sergeant reported us ready for duty to Adjutant-General Mansfield, and he told

Matthews that we were "the first company reported for duty in the war."

The 6th Regt. of Mass. Vols. having fought their way through the blockade at Baltimore made us feel still more valiant, but for eleven days after we were entirely cut off from the North, until General Butler opened a new route by way of Annapolis. The Massachusetts soldiers were quickly followed by regiments from New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. In a few days we received orders to embark for Fort Washington, on the Potomac, opposite Mount Vernon. As we passed Alexandria, our men kept concealed and our steamer hugged the opposite shore, for the rebels had a battery of field guns on the wharf, and had they known there were Union troops on that steamer they would probably have sent us to the bottom of the river. Major Haskin, a one-armed veteran of the Mexican war, was in command of Fort Washington, and under him we speedily acquired the steadiness and accuracy of regular soldiers. Squad and company drills, mounting heavy guns in the fort and water battery, and making abatis on the land side, left us little time to do anything else. When the news of our disastrous defeat at Manassas reached us our time had expired and we voluntarily remained two weeks longer. We were then forwarded to Harrisburg, where we were mustered from service.

On the 22d of July, 1861, we received the thanks of Congress, the following resolution having been passed:

Resolved, That the thanks of this House are due and are hereby tendered to the five hundred and thirty soldiers from Pennsylvania, who passed through the mob at Baltimore and reached Washington on the eighteenth day of April, 1861, for the defense of the National Capital.

This company afterwards furnished no less than thirty-three commissioned officers in different organizations, and we challenge any company in either army to make a better showing of what the citizen soldier can do. Selheimer and Hulings became colonels.

Our first sergeants, Matthews, Irwin, and William G. Mitchell, late of General Hancock's staff, were brigadiers, another became a major and the rest were commissioned captains and lieutenants. The other four companies also made a brilliant record in the war.

DEFEAT.

General Scott could not understand how a "hero of one hundred battles" could be beaten, and he only believed when the retreating, panic-stricken army sounded its approach. When the veteran was convinced, he gave an order to suppress all news of the disaster which might be offered for telegraphing to the country. Armed with this document I drove to the American telegraph office and notified its manager.

The tables were piled with specials from the field, describing in thrilling language the scenes and events of the day. All intimations of disaster were ruthlessly cut from the specials and only the rose coloring was permitted to be telegraphed. Thus it was that whilst the gloom of the darkest hour in the Republic's history hung like a pall over Washington, throughout the North bells were ringing out rejoicings over the glad tidings of victory. Telegrams were sent to General McClellan, at Beverly, West Virginia, informing him of a "repulse" to McDowell, and to Generals Banks and Dix-both of whom were in Baltimore-instructing them to keep their men under arms. No official telegrams for aid was sent at this time, but Col. Thomas A. Scott, with a keen perception of the situation and foreseeing the necessity of the morrow, sent a telegram to Governor Curtin, at Harrisburg, which was so characteristic of the man, that I give its full text:

HON. A. G. CURTIN, Harrisburg, Pa.

Washington, July 21, 1861.

Get your regiments at Harrisburg, Easton, and other points ready for immediate shipment. Lose no time preparing. Make things move to the utmost.

THOMAS A. Scott.

This dispatch anticipated by many hours any official action looking towards a call for "more troops." Mr. Lincoln lingered around the War Department until after two o'clock in the morning, when he retired to the White House, leaving Mr. Scott on guard—an active, watchful sentinel of the movements of the night. Had the country been consulted, it could not have selected from its patriotic sons an abler, truer, wiser, braver guardian than the noble man Mr. Lincoln left to care for the nation's interests in the crisis which had come upon

it.

6th Mass. Regt. Passing through Baltimore.

A FURIOUS MOB BARRICADES THE STREETS.-MARSHAL KANE HELPLESS. From History of the Mass. Sixth Regiment.