DODGING BALTIMORE. bers to see us enter, but our delay disappointed them, and they went home. We came and went without a reception or demonstration. "There was one peculiar difference that I noticed existing between the Massachusetts regiments that we met in Philadelphia and our men. The Massachusetts men-to whom all honor be. given for the splendid manner in which they afterward acted in a most trying situation presented a singular moral contrast to the members of the Seventh. They were earnest, grim, determined. Badly equipped, haggard, unshorn, they yet had a manhood in their look that hardships could not kill. They were evidently thinking all the time of the contest into which they were about to enter. Their grey, eager eyes seemed to be looking for the heights of Virginia. With us it was somewhat differ ent. 197 "The first evening, April 20, on board the Boston, passed delightfully. We were all in first-rate spirits, and the calm, sweet evenings that stole on us as we approached the South, diffused a soft and gentle influence over us. The scene on board the ship was exceedingly picturesque. Fellows fumbling in haversacks for rations, or extracting sandwiches from reluctant canteens; guards pacing up and down with drawn bayonets; knapsacks piled in bristling heaps of muskets, with sharp, shining teeth, crowded into every available nook; picturesque groups of men lolling on deck, pipe or cigar in mouth, indulged in the dolce far niente, as if they were on the blue shores of Capri rather than on their way to battle; unbuttoned jackets, crossed legs, heads leaning on knapsacks, blue uniforms everywhere, with here and there a glint of officers' red enlivening the foreground Our men were gay and careless, confident of being at any moment capable of performing, and more than performing, their duty. They looked battle in the face with a smile, and were ready to hob-nob with an enemy and kill him afterward. The one was courage in the rough; the other was courage bur--all formed a scene that such painters. nished. The steel was the same in as the English Warren would have revboth, but the last was a little more pol- elled in. ished. "I regret to say that all was not rosecolored. The steamer that the Colonel chartered had to get ready at three or four hours' notice, he having changed his plans, in consequence of the tearing up of the rails around Baltimore. The result was that she was imperfectly provisioned. visioned. As the appetites of the men began to develop, the resources of the vessel began to appear. In the first place, she was far too small to accommodate a thousand men, and we were obliged to sleep in all sorts of impossible attitudes. There is an ingenious device known to carpenters as 'dove-tailing,' and we were so thick that we had positively to dove-tail, only that there was very little of the dove about it; for when perambulating soldiers stepped on the faces and stomachs of the sleepers, as they lay on deck, the greeting that they received had but little flavor of the olive-branch. way, cloudless day. We had steamed all night, and about ten o'clock were in the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay. At eleven. o'clock A. M. we had service read by our chaplain, and at one P. M. we were seven miles from the coast. The day was calm and delicious. In spite of our troubles with regard to food-troubles, be it understood, entirely unavoidable— we drank in with delight the serenity of the scene. A hazy tent of blue hung over our heads. On one side the dim thread of shore hemmed in the sea. Flights of loons and ducks skimmed along the ocean, rising lazily, and spattering the waves with their wings as they flew against the wind, until they rose into air, and, wheeling, swept into calmer feeding grounds. Now and then the calm of the hour was broken with the heavy tramp of men and the metallic voice of the corporal of the guard relieving his comrades. At five o'clock P. M. we passed a light-ship and hailed her, our object being to discover whether any United States vessels were in the neighborhood waiting to convoy us up the Potomac River. We had heard that the forts at Alexandria were ready to open upon us if we attempted to pass up, and our steamer was of such a build that, had a shell or shot struck it, we would have been burned or drowned. It therefore behooved us to be cautious. The answers we got from the light-ship and other vessels that we hailed in this spot were unsatisfactory, and although the feelings of the men were unanimous in wishing to force the Potomac, wiser "April 21st was Sunday. A glorious, counsels, as it proved, were behind us, "Notwithstanding that we found very soon that the commissariat was in a bad the men were as jolly as sandboys. I never saw a more good-humored set of men in my life. Fellows who would at Delmonico's have sent back a turban de volaille aux truffes because the truffles were tough, here cheerfully took their places in file between decks, tin plates and tin cups in hand, in order to get an insufficient piece of beef and a vision of coffee. But it was all merrily done. The scant fare was seasoned with hilarity; and here I say to those people in New York who have sneered at the Seventh Regiment as being dandies, and guilty of the unpardonable crimes of cleanliness and kid gloves, that they would cease to scoff and remain to bless had they beheld the square, honest, genial way in which these military Brummells roughed it. Farther on you will see what they did in the way of endurance and activity. and we kept on. ARRIVAL AT ANNAPOLIS. All this time we were entirely ignorant of where we were going. The officers kept all secret, and our conjectures drifted like a drifting boat. On the morning of the 22d we were in sight of Annapolis, off which the Constitution was lying, and there found the Eighth Regiment of Massachusetts volunteers, on board the Maryland. They were aground, owing, it is supposed, to the treachery of the captain, whom they put in irons, and wanted to hang. I regret to say that they did not do it. During the greater portion of that forenoon we were occupied in trying to get the Maryland off the sand-bar on which she was grounded. From our decks we could see the men in file trying to rock her, so as to facilitate our tugging. These men were without water and without food, were well conducted and uncomplaining, and behaved, in all respects, like heroes. They were under the command of Colonel Butler. * "On the afternoon of the 22d we landed at the Annapolis dock, after having spent hours in trying to relieve the Maryland. For the first time in his life your correspondent was put to work to roll flour barrels. He was intrusted with the honorable and onerous duty of transporting stores from the steamer to the dock. Later still he descended to the position of mess servant, when, in company with gentlemen well-known in Broadway for immaculate kids, he had the honor of attending on his company with buckets of cooked meat and crackers, the only difference between him 199 and Co. and the ordinary waiter being, that the former were civil. "After this I had the pleasing duty of performing three hours of guard duty on the dock with a view to protect the baggage and stores. It was monotonous being my first guard-but not unpleasant. The moon rose calm and white. A long dock next to the one on which I was stationed stretched away into the bay, resting on its numerous piles, until it looked in the clear moonlight like a centipede. All was still and calm, until at certain periods the guard challenged persons attempting to pass. There was a holy influence in the hour, and somehow the hot fever of anxiety that had been over us for days, seemed to pass away under the touch of the magnetic fingers of the night. "We were quartered in the buildings belonging to the Naval School at Annapolis. I had a bunking-place in what is there called a fort, which is a rickety structure that a lucifer match would set on fire, but furnished with imposing guns. I suppose it was merely built to practice the cadets, because as a defence it is worthless. The same evening, boats were sent off from the yard, and toward nightfall the Massachusetts men landed, fagged, hungry, thirsty, but indomitable. At an early hour there was a universal snore through the Naval School of Annapolis. "The two days that we remained at Annapolis were welcome. We had been without a fair night's sleep since we left New York, and even the hard quarters we had there were luxury compared to the dirty decks of the Boston. Besides, there were natural attractions. The grounds are very prettily laid out, and in the course of my experience I never saw a handsomer or better bred set of young men than the cadets; and they have proved loyal, only twenty having left the school owing to political conviction. The remainder are are sound Union fellows, eager to prove their devotion to the flag. After spending a delightful time in the Navy School, resting and amusing ourselves, our repose was disturbed, at 9 P. M., April 23d, by rockets being thrown up in the bay. The men were scattered all over the grounds; some in bed, others walking or smoking, all more or less undressed. The rockets being of a suspicious character, it was conjectured that a Southern fleet was outside, and our drummer beat the roll-call to arms. From the stroke of the drum until the time that every man, fully equipped and in fighting order, was in the ranks, was exactly, by watch, seven minutes. It is needless to say anything about such celerity-it speaks for itself. The alarm, however, proved to be false, the vessels in the offing proving to be laden with the Seventy-first and other New York regiments; so that, after an unpremeditated trial of our readiness for action, we were permitted to retire to our virtuous couches, which means, permit me to say, a blanket on the floor, with a military overcoat over you, and a nasal concert all around you that, in noise and number, outvies Musard's celebrated concerts monstres. "On the morning of the 24th of April we started on what afterward proved to be one of the hardest marches. on record. The secessionists of Annapolis and the surrounding district had threatened to cut us off in our march, and even went so far as to say that they would attack our quarters. This, of course, was the drunken Southern ebullition. A civilian told me that he met in the streets of Annapolis two cavalry soldiers who came to cut our throats without delay, but as each brave warrior was endeavoring to hold the other up, my friend did not apprehend much danger. "A curious revulsion of feeling took place at Annapolis, and indeed all through Maryland, after our arrival. "The admirable good conduct which characterizes the regiment, the open liberality which it displays in all pecuniary transactions, and the courteous de meanor which it exhibits to all classes, took the narrow-minded population of this excessively wretched town by surprise. They were prepared for pillage. They thought we were going to sack the place. They found, instead, that we were prepared and willing to pay liberal prices for everything, and that even patriotic presentations were steadily refused. While we were in the Navy School, of course all sorts of rumors as to our operations were floating about. It surprised me that no one suggested that we were to go off in a balloon; however, all surmises were put to an end by our receiving orders, the evening of the 23d, to assemble in marching MARCH TO WASHINGTON. order next morning. The dawn saw us 201 came out. The locomotives had been taken to pieces by the inhabitants, in order to prevent our travel. In steps a Massachusetts volunteer, looks at the piece-meal engine, takes up a flange, and says coolly, 'I made this engine, and I can put it together again. Engineers were wanted when the engine was ready. Nineteen stepped out of the ranks. The rails were torn up. Practical railroad makers out of the regiment laid them again, and all this, mind you, without care or food. These brave boys, I say, were starving while they were doing this good work. What their Colonel was doing I can't say. As we marched along the track that they had laid, they greeted us with ranks of smiling but laugh on his young lips, that he had not eaten anything for thirty hours. There was not, thank God, a haversack in our regiment that was not emptied into the hands of these ill-treated heroes, nor a flask that was not at their disposal. "General Scott has stated, as I have been informed, that the march that we performed from Annapolis to the Junction is one of the most remarkable on record. I know that I felt it the most fatiguing, and some of our officers have told me that it was the most perilous. We marched the first eight miles under a burning sun, in heavy marching order, in less than three hours; and it is well-hungry faces. One boy told me, with a known that, placing all elementary considerations out of the way, marching on a railroad track is the most harassing. We started at about eight o'clock A. M., and for the first time saw the town of Annapolis, which, without any disrespect to that place, I may say, looked very much as if some celestial schoolboy, with a box of toys under his arm, had dropped a few houses and men as he was going home from school, and that the accidental settlement was called Annapolis. Through the town we marched, the people unsympathizing, but afraid. They saw the Seventh for the first time, and for the first time they realized the men that they had threatened. "Our march lay through an arid, sandy, tobacco-growing country. The sun poured on our heads like hot lava. The Sixth and Second companies were sent on for skirmishing duty, under the command of Captains Clarke and Nevers, the latter commanding as senior officer. A car, on which was placed a howitzer, loaded with grape and canister, headed the column, manned by the engineer and artillery corps, commanded by Lieu"The tracks had been torn up be- tenant Bunting. This was the rallying tween Annapolis and the Junction, and point of the skirmishing party, on which, here it was that the wonderful qualities in case of difficulty, they could fall back. of the Massachusetts Eighth Regiment | In the centre of the column came the |