Nine o'clock of the 2d marked the Regiment again on the way, and on the
mountain top at Fairview was had the first sight of secession land,
the Dixie of the song, and then on to Hancock, by the bank of the
Potomac, the terminal of the order that initiated the war service that
started active, and on that line developed, continuously, to a fulness
sufficient to meet the hardiest speculations of the most radical
expectant.
The National Pike furnished the roadway from Hagerstown to Hancock.
The arrival at Hancock was in the evening of the 2d. The Regiment was
put in quarters just vacated by the 13th Massachusetts, which had been
passed on its way down the river in canal boats.
The day of arrival at Hancock was in the ninth month of a War that had
not been lacking in vigor of movement on the part of the foe which
the Government had encountered, and yet so little of system had been
attained, and so little of war wisdom sought after, that a regiment
of soldiers was travelled from Harrisburg without arms, and that to
a point just across a river, narrow and shallow, from where lie the
forces whose movements the regiment had been sent to check.
On the 3d, the guns were handed out. They were of the old Belgian make,
containing all the tallow that the barrel would accommodate in addition
to the several cartridges necessary to be supplied before the moistened
powder could be induced to ignite. When they were carried over into
Virginia, and the warmth of the fire reached the explosive grain, you
can think now, as you realized then, that even the Belgian was not
built to throw more than one ball at the same fire without repairs to
one or the other--the gun or the man.
But why _say_, or even _think_ fault of what was done, for what was not
done, then. Everybody is wiser now.
Through all its after course the Regiment proved itself full worthy of
the reputation, at that time, so early in its history, at the very
beginning of its first campaign, impliedly accorded it, that it would
go wherever ordered to go, and pick up on the way whatever could be
found most effective for the best work.
And there was the full Regulation uniform. The appearance presented in
the dark blue, the tail coat, the plentiful hat, and the extra cap. Who
can say that these things were not sufficient to keep Stonewall Jackson
on the other side, notwithstanding the apparent absence of arms?
for, competent soldier that he was, he could not have been induced
to believe that, in the ninth month of the War, a regiment of United
States _Regulars_ would have been permitted at the front without all
requisite paraphernalia close at hand.