Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ...What there was to be accomplished by such warning was hard to tell, as the sound of the bells would have brought joy to the hearts of a majority of the inhabitants of a city which, like its sister city, Baltimore, was disloyal to its heart's core. That dismal night ride on the south side of the Potomac discovered to us nothing but isolated figures flitting here and there in the darkness, and all tending toward the Potomac long bridge and the Georgetown Aqueduct bridge. Picnickers who had gone out in strong force to see the fight, many in hacks, were the first to block travel over the bridges, in their mad haste to escape from that night-mare of the Army, the "Black Horse Cavalry." The day following this night was a dreary one indeed; drizzling rain, with heavy clouds hanging over as a pall. Fragments of regiments reported at headquarters from hour to hour, in bodies of a dozen or more, each squad claiming to be "all that is left of our regiment." Confidence fortunately was restored in the course of a few days, after it was ascertained that the regiments had not really been "annihilated," and that the stragglers were reassembling on their old camp grounds. We were also encouraged to believe that the Confederates were as much demoralized by victory as we had been by defeat. This day's awakening of the American people verified, as time showed, the old adage, that the uses of adversity are sweet indeed. Our loss was far less than at first reported, but we were sorely wounded in our pride and prestige. Of course valuable lives were sacrificed on both sides, and many of our men were made prisoners of war, but the loss was by no means commensurate with the force engaged, and inconsiderable when compared with that of...
