Meantime General Butler's command, the Massachusetts Eighth, had been
busy knocking disorder in the head.
Presently after their landing, and before they were refreshed, they
pushed companies out to occupy the railroad-track beyond the town.
They found it torn up. No doubt the scamps who did the shabby
job fancied that there would be no more travel that way until
strawberry-time. They fancied the Yankees would sit down on the fences
and begin to whittle white-oak toothpicks, darning the rebels, through
their noses, meanwhile.
I know these men of the Eighth can whittle, and I presume they can say
"Darn it," if occasion requires; but just now track-laying was the
business on hand.
"Wanted, experienced track-layers!" was the word along the files.
All at once the line of the road became densely populated with
experienced track-layers, fresh from Massachusetts.
Presto change! the rails were relaid, spiked, and the roadway levelled
and better ballasted than any road I ever saw south of Mason and Dixon's
line. "We must leave a good job for these folks to model after," say the
Massachusetts Eighth.
A track without a train is as useless as a gun without a man. Train and
engine must be had. "Uncle Sam's mails and troops cannot be stopped
another minute," our energetic friends conclude. So--the railroad
company's people being either frightened or false--in marches
Massachusetts to the station. "We, the People of the United States, want
rolling-stock for the use of the Union," they said, or words to that
effect.
The engine--a frowzy machine at the best--had been purposely disabled.
Here appeared the _deus ex machina_, Charles Homans, Beverly Light
Guard, Company E, Eighth Massachusetts Regiment.
That is the man, name and titles in full, and he deserves well of his
country.
He took a quiet squint at the engine,--it was as helpless as a boned
turkey,--and he found "Charles Homans, his mark," written all over it.
The old rattletrap was an old friend. Charles Homans had had a share
in building it. The machine and the man said, "How d'y' do?" at once.
Homans called for a gang of engine-builders. Of course they swarmed out
of the ranks. They passed their hands over the locomotive a few times,
and presently it was ready to whistle and wheeze and rumble and gallop,
as if no traitor had ever tried to steal the go and the music out of it.
This had all been done during the afternoon of the 23d. During the
night, the renovated engine was kept cruising up and down the track to
see all clear. Guards of the Eighth were also posted to protect passage.
Our commander had, I presume, been cooperating with General Butler in
this business. The Naval Academy authorities had given us every despatch
and assistance, and the middies, frank, personal hospitality. The day
was halcyon, the grass was green and soft, the apple-trees were just in
blossom: it was a day to be remembered.
Many of us will remember it, and show the marks of it for months, as the
day we had our heads cropped. By evening there was hardly one poll in
the Seventh tenable by anybody's grip. Most sat in the shade and were
shorn by a barber. A few were honored with a clip by the artist hand of
the _petit caporal_ of our Engineer Company.
While I rattle off these trifling details, let me not fail to call
attention to the grave service done by our regiment, by its arrival, at
the nick of time, at Annapolis. No clearer special Providence could have
happened. The country-people of the traitor sort were aroused. Baltimore
and its mob were but two hours away. The Constitution had been hauled
out of reach of a rush by the Massachusetts men,--first on the
ground,--but was half-manned and not fully secure. And there lay the
Maryland, helpless on the shoal, with six or seven hundred souls on
board, so near the shore that the late Captain Rynders's gun could have
sunk her from some ambush.
Yes! the Seventh Regiment at Annapolis was the Right Man in the Right
Place!