Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
The fighting was done principally on foot. While these things were transpiring, Kilpatrick moved his division from Falling Waters to Boonsboro' by way of Williamsport and Hagerstown. Sad evidences of the recent battles and marches, in dead animals and general débris, were seen all along the way.
The latter regiment had hardly more than turned in the new direction when the boom of a cannon in front told the story that the battle had begun. General Kilpatrick had been attending to matters in Hagerstown. It was evident that there was considerable force there and that it was constantly augmenting. The opening gun at Williamsport called his attention to a new danger.
On the day it arrived, a proclamation was issued by Governor Curtin, discharging the militia, with his grateful acknowledgments in the name of the State, and commending their bravery in passing the borders, although not required to do so by the terms of the call, holding Hagerstown against an advancing foe, and resisting the threatened movement of the rebels upon Williamsport until the United States troops arrived and relieved them.
Crook retreated through Martinsburg into Maryland, and marching by Williamsport and Boonsborough, took post at Sharpsburg, while Averell stayed at Hagerstown to watch the upper fords of the Potomac. To break up the Baltimore and Ohio railway and to ravage the borders of Pennsylvania were favorite ideas with Early.
Affairs at Monocacy kept me but an hour or two, and these disposed of, I continued on to Harper's Ferry by the special train which had brought me from Washington, that point being intended as my headquarters while making preparations to advance. The enemy was occupying Martinsburg, Williamsport, and Shepherdstown at the time; sending occasional raiding parties into Maryland as far as Hagerstown.
The latter was shot down at once, as was his horse, and Hyde rode round in front of the regiment just in time to see a long line of men in gray rise from behind the stone wall of the Hagerstown pike, which was to their right, and pour in a volley; but it mostly went too high. He then ordered his men to left oblique.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, great interest began to centre upon the road, occasioned by the frequent and furious galloping up and down of cavalry pickets and aids, and the report spread that a considerable body of rebels was advancing up the pike in the direction of Hagerstown. The long roll was beat, and the command to fall in was given.
"Yet there was no permission to move on and follow up the enemy. We remained there some time, until we had orders to move on and take a position a mile or more nearer Hagerstown. As we moved up we saw that the Rebels had some light field-works hurriedly thrown up, apparently to cover themselves while they recrossed the river.
After witnessing this dreadful scene I was led into Hagerstown jail, where I remained until my new master was ready, when I went with him to Memphis, Tennessee; but the remembrance of this awful tragedy haunted my mind, and even my dreams, for many months.
On the 12th, after a brisk skirmish with the Confederate cavalry, his advanced guard had occupied Frederick, and discovered that the enemy had marched off in two columns, one towards Hagerstown, the other towards Harper's Ferry, but he was uncertain whether Lee intended to recross the Potomac or to move northwards into Pennsylvania.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking