within the United States. It is, I am informed, only 44 or 45 miles from Washington and there is a high road between the two places, which tho hilly is good. It passes through Piscataway no near[er] to Fort Washington than four miles, which fortification is sixteen miles below the city of Washington, and is the only one the Army would have to pass. I therefore most firmly believe that within 48 hours after the arrival in the Patuxent of such a force as you expect, the city of Washington might be possessed without difficulty or opposition of any kind. As you will observe by my public letter of this day, the ships of the fleet could cover a landing at Benedict, the safety of the ships and the smoothness of the water in the river would render us entirely independent of the weather in all our projected movements (an object of considerable importance when we recollect how fast the season is advancing to that period when the weather becomes so unsteady on all this coast). The army on its arrival would be sure of good quarters in the Town of Benedict, and a rich country around it to afford the necessary immediate supplies, and as many horses as might be wanted to transport cannon, &c., which advantages might certainly now be obtained without meeting with the slightest opposition, or requiring any sacrifice from us whatsoever, and as I have quitted the Patuxent and (on this account) do not intend again to visit until you arrive with the army, or I hear further from you, I trust and believe everything will remain till then in the neighbourhood of that River exactly as I have now left it. The facility and rapidity, after its being first discovered, with which an army by landing at Benedict might possess itself of the Capital, always so great a blow to the Government of a country, as well on account of the resources as of the documents and records the invading army is almost sure to obtain thereby, must strongly, I should think, urge the propriety of the plan, and the more particularly as the other places you have mentioned will be more likely to fall after the occupation of Washington, than that city would be after their capture. Annapolis is

of all at

tolerably well fortified, and is the spot from whence the American government has always felt Washington would be threatened if at all, it is natural to suppose precautions have been taken to frustrate and impede our advance in that direction; add to which Annapolis being fortified, a station for troops, and not to be approached by our larger ships on account of the shallowness of the water, it is possible and probable the Occupation of it might cost us some little time, which would Course be taken advantage of by the enemy to draw together the force at his command for the defence of Washington, and all events enable the Heads of Departments there to remove whatever they may wish. Baltimore is likewise extremely difficult of access to us from the sea, we cannot in ships drawing above sixteen feet, approach nearer even to the mouth of the Patapsco than 7 or 8 miles and Baltimore is situated 12 miles up, it having an extensive population, mostly armed, and a fort for its protection about a mile advanced from it on a proj ecting point where the River is so narrow as to admit of people conversing across it, and this fort is a work which has been completed by French Engineers with considerable pains and at much expense and is therefore of a description only to be regularly approached, and consequently would require time reduce, which I conceive it will be judged important not to lose in striking our first blows, but both Annapolis and Baltimore are to be taken without difficulty from the land side; that is, coming down upon them from the Washington Road, the former being I think commanded by the heights behind and Baltimore having no defence whatever in its rear, and

to

it,

from the moment of your arrival in the Chesapeake, let the plan adopted be what it may, a small force detached to the Susquehanna will always prevent or materially impede the arrival of any considerable reinforcements or assistance from the eastern states.

If Philadelphia is supposed to be an object of greater imPortance than the places I have just mentioned, I should deem the landing at Elton the most advisable mode of approaching as the intended point of attack would thereby be masked

it,

till the army would be actually landed and on its march on the road from Elkton to Wilmington (above Newcastle) which is short and good, and does not offer as far as I know difficulties or opposition of any kind, and the movement need not prevent such ships as may be judged requisite from proceeding up the Delaware to cooperate with the army as circumstances may require and point out the propriety of, and I should here remark that if Washington (as I strongly recommend) be deemed worthy of our first efforts, altho' our main forces should be landed in the Patuxent, yet a tolerably good division should at the same time be sent up the Patowmac with bomb ships &c. which will tend to distract and divide the enemy, amuse Fort Washington if it does not reduce it, and will probably offer other advantages of importance without any counterbalancing inconvenience as the communication between the grand army and this division will be easy and immediate in consequence of the very small space between the Potowmac and Patuxent.

American guides will not be difficult to obtain in this country when we have force to protect them and money to pay them. I have already one, who has been ill treated in his own country, and seems extremely anxious to be revenged. I have employed him on all occasions and he has shewn himself staunch and clever and I have therefore now put him on regular pay according to the tenor of your directions, he being both a pilot for the rivers and a guide for the roads in this neighborhood.

Norfolk seems to be the only place where the Americans expect a serious attack. That place has been considerably strengthened of late; and I am informed eight or ten thousand men are collected there, it is not however in my opinion worthy of primary notice, but you may deem it, perhaps sir, worthy of attending to after others of greater importance have been disposed of.

I have &c &c

G. C.

Vice Admiral

The Hnble. Sir A. Cochrane, K. B.

Commander in Chief.

BALTIMORE IN 1846.'

HENRY STOCKBRIDGE, SR.

It is thirty years this week since I first came to Baltimore to make it my home. A stranger to the city, its people and its ways, on my arrival here every thing had to me the charm of novelty; and the novelty of the observations I then made, and the experiences I then passed through fixed them in my memory, so that as I glance backward after the lapse of years the Baltimore of 1845 presents itself to my mind with a distinctness and vividness such as characterize it at no other period over which the swift flight of time hath borne me. Subsequent events are a moving panorama, the unresting course of which hath left on the tablet of memory many bright and cherished fragment pictures indeed, (as well as some that are shrouded in shadow and gloom); but has left no completed picture presenting a view of facts and events in their connection, and fixing as contemporaneous coexisting things. But Baltimore, as I first saw it was daguerreotyped on the mind, and now that time, in its remorseless progress, has swept forever from mortal view so many of the men, and of the land-marks that stand out in that picture, it may not be irksome, even to those who will recall, far more clearly than I can describe them, every salient object in the picture to spend a few moments in the contemplation of it; while to a younger generation it may possibly be a relic of the past that is a sort of revelation.

The wonderful improvements, as they were justly regarded, which had been made within the ten or fifteen years that preceded 1845 had brought the east and south very near together as counted in the itinerary and though railroad lines terminated in New York, and the route beyond was unaided by the locomotive, yet there were not many consecutive days in any winter in which

'Read before the Society December 10, 1875.

boats could not ply upon Long Island Sound, and not more than two or three months ordinarily that it forbade their running up North River to Albany, so that taking the whole year together New York (state) and New England were supposed to have been brought so near to Washington as to have very little room for further progress.

But between New York, the nation's metropolis and Washington, the nation's capital, all obstacles to rapid speed had been surmounted, and the ne plus ultra of swift travelling had been reached. The traveller could get himself ticketed from New York clear to Philadelphia, and leaving the former city by boat from Pier No. 1 near the Battery, sailed according to the weather, either out through the narrows and by Raritan Bay-or in by Weehawken Bay and Staten Island Sound to Amboy-then cars whirled him across New Jersey to Bordentown, and boat down the Delaware landed him at the foot of Walnut street in the City of Brotherly Love. All of this could be accomplished in about seven hours. The ambitious man who wished to prove how much humanity was capable of achieving-could procure transportation to another boat which would bear him down the Delaware to New Castle then transferred to cars-constructed somewhat on the European plan with apartments and side doors, he crossed the great state of Delaware to Frenchtown and then took boat which without further transshipment brought him all of the rest of the way to Baltimore. But this line, although a very popular one was not the only one between Philadelphia and Baltimore. The other line and which I selected for the journey, required me to obtain conveyance from the wharf at the foot of Walnut street to the depot on Market street near Eleventh, thence moving by horse power beyond the city limits, we were taken in charge by the locomotive and deposited on the banks of the Susquehanna when men and luggage were transshipped and delivered over to a waiting train on the other side of the river-and by it were brought to the confines of the city where horsepower took the cars seriatim to the depot on the south side of Pratt street a little west of Light street. All of this was accomplished in a day, leaving New York at 7 o'clock in the morning and reaching Baltimore