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A motley crowd has assembled under the banyan tree awaiting the boat's return; and as soon as it arrives, they eagerly scramble in. I enjoy watching this for hours together. It is market-day in the village on the other bank; that is why the ferry is so busy. Some carry bundles of hay, some baskets, some sacks; some are going to the market, others coming from it.
At length troops were seen in motion, but the head of the column was turned towards the Ferry. 'What does this mean? was the inquiry that hastily ran from man to man; and still they marched towards the Ferry.
Nancy and Sally rode on the other horse. Abe and his father walked. At night they camped along the way. When at last they reached the Ohio River, Abe stared in surprise. It was so blue, so wide, so much bigger than the creek where he and Dennis had gone swimming. There were so many boats. One of them, a long low raft, was called a ferry.
Within twenty minutes the Federals, already demoralised by the defeat of Banks, were retiring in disorder, abandoning arms, blankets, and haversacks, along the road, and the pursuit was continued until their reserves were descried in strong force on the Bolivar Heights, a low ridge covering Harper's Ferry from the south.
There is a little boy often on board the Rock Ferry steamer with an accordion, an instrument I detest; but nevertheless it becomes tolerable in his hands, not so much for its music, as for the earnestness and interest with which he plays it.
The ferry business flourished at prices which were sometimes hard to collect. But it was a case of pay or go back, and it was a tur'ble long ways back. We got us timbers and made a scow; built a baile and saloon and houses out of adobe; and called her Yuma, after the Injins that had really started her. We got our supplies through the Gulf of California, where sailing boats worked up the river.
At the station we purchased tickets, and when the train pulled in I boarded a smoker. The other two took another coach the stranger was a thick-set individual with a stubby, grey moustache. On the boat I didn't see them; but at the ferry building I made a test to see that I was followed. I hailed a taxi and gave specific instructions to the driver. "Drive slowly," I told him.
Jackson, meanwhile, constructing a ferry at Mount Crawford, had sent his sick and wounded to Staunton, thus saving them the long detour by Port Republic; and dispatching his stores and prisoners by the more circuitous route, had passed through Harrisonburg to Cross Keys, a clump of buildings on Mill Creek, where, on the night of the 5th, his infantry and artillery, with the exception of a brigade supporting the cavalry, went into bivouac.
That same day, which must have been about July 26th, I was near the river-bank, looking at a block-house which had been built for the defense of the aqueduct, when I saw a carriage coming by the road that crossed the Potomac River at Georgetown by a ferry. I thought I recognized in the carriage the person of President Lincoln.
But these few were the only ones who were not surprised when this recluse of peace suddenly became a very thunderbolt of war Puritan in soul, Cavalier in daring: a Cromwell come to life again. Harper's Ferry was a strategic point in northern Virginia.
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