The March of the New York Seventh Regiment—Ingenuity of the Massachusetts Eighth—Comparison Between Massachusetts and New York Volunteers.
The New York Times has a long account of the trip of the famous Seventh N. Y. Regiment, from New York to Washington, written by Fitz James O’Brien, the accomplished literattuer, author of “The Diamond Lens,” etc., who is himself a member of the Regiment. We copy the following:
“Gen. 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. The secessionists of Maryland had sworn that they would cut to pieces that regiment, and it was actually telegraphed all over the South that the threat had been accomplished. We marched the first eight miles under a burning sun, in heavy marching order, in less than three hours; and it is well known that, placing all elementary considerations out of the way, marching on a railroad track is the most harassing. We started at about 7 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 school boy, 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.