Читать книгу A Summer in Maryland and Virginia; Or, Campaigning with the 149th Ohio Volunteer Infantry онлайн

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The negro could always be depended upon to assist Union soldiers in their efforts to escape from prison, and they approached their cabins with confidence, knowing that they would give them shelter and share their last morsel of food with him, and guide him along his way. Many a weary, hungry soldier has blessed the memory of his kind benefactors, with black faces and white hearts. This was the experience of our two boys, Cook and Martin, who escaped from Mosby, and has been the experience of hundreds of others, who, escaping from the prison pens of the south with the north star as a guide made their way through rugged mountains and trackless forests, back to “God’s country.”

From Frederick, the army marched on to Harper’s Ferry. Crossing the “Pontoon bridge” we passed through the town and went into camp at Halltown. We reached this camp on July 23d and remained there two days. The Sixth and Nineteenth Corps having passed up the Shenandoah Valley in pursuit of Early. Gen. Crook’s forces engaged Early at Kernstown, but losing heavily, had been forced back to the Potomac. This reverse caused our forces to fall back to Maryland Heights. On July 25th our Regiment “fell in” on the left and began what is known as the terrific “hot march” The sun was blistering, the heat seemed concentrated in the valley, while the dust rising in clouds was suffocating. As we plodded along on this short march of four miles, men could be seen dropping from sunstroke. I saw an officer throw up his hands and fall backward off his horse. Comrades pulled them to the roadside and did what they could for them. It was reported that thirty-five men had suffered sunstroke on that hot afternoon.