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To J. Merrill Linn, April 17, 1861: Make a formal tender tomorrow by telegraph or by letter sending number of men. Arms furnished by the government. You will be accepted no doubt. — N.H. Wilson. Harris-burg, April 17, 1861, Rec’d. 5 p.m. To J. Merrill Linn: Tender service of your company tomorrow. I have written. — Eli Slifer. Norristown, April 17, 1861. “Dear Him, On Saturday I expect to be in Harrisburg with the military. I am Quartermas-ter of the First Mont. County Regiment. Norristown alone furnishes five full companies and will overrun the complement with 50 more.” — Yours respectfully, W.H. Yerkes. “I wish you would be attached to our regiment. At such notice it will be almost impossible to fill it here. You will know the Quartermaster and I will see you will be well provided for.” The Hon. Eli Slifer was then secretary of the Common-wealth. Wilson was private secretary and William H. Yerkes was an old school mate of James Chamberlin, to whom the letter was written, honored graduates of the University at Lewisburg. All three of the writers are now dead. The company was tendered and accepted, transportation furnished and with Chaplain McDaniel at our head, we marched across the river to the station at Montandon. As we gathered on April 18, the town gathered its whole population of men, women and children on Market St., and the country people flocked in and there were the Pross drum corps, and through the dusty old bridge the crowd poured across, and were around us with tear-stained faces at the station, where the Rev. Thomas Reese poured a flood of eloquence in bidding farewell. The corded veins swelled out on our forehead, for we the soldier boys must repress emotion, the tears were for the relief of those left behind. I must appeal to those who are left to recall the scene. I cannot describe it. I can only recall stray bits, of standing in the street, of passing the brick wall of the graveyard where the Presbyterian church stands— there was a motley crowd of us in our civilian dress— just as the call reached them, the lawyer, the physician, the preacher, the mechanic, the ploughman, the clerk and the printer left with the clothes they had on, no grip-sacks, that I remember the choking dust in the old bridge of Sassaman from Centerville, coming post haste to join “Marl’s Company” of Jim Gibson recommending him on the ground that the Snyder County dutchman was strong enough to hold a bull, of Jesse Schreyer bidding me good-bye, the tears rolling down his cheeks—such stray bits only as Dickens describes Fagin on his way to execution. We arrived at Harrisburg at 1:00, and through the generosity of some people, I don’t remember who, we all went to Buckner’s Hotel and had dinner. We reached the famous Camp Curtin by 4:00 in the afternoon. It was then the Fairground. We had quarters assigned, straw, stole boards off the fence and made floors to the tents, dug ditches around them, and were pretty comfortable that night although it was cold. Providential fellows had lots of straw, and many had scant measure in consequence The blankets were not what we had in after years. I remember looking with rueful face at my black cloth suit in the morning. The discomfort was demoralizing. The commissary was ill managed, or rather there was such a sudden influx that it was impossible to get anything in order. We had brought nothing with us— perhaps a towel and a piece of soap, but where to get water and how to wash—dirty and bedraggled, I got into the city the next day, where John Brown, an old school mate of my brother’s, recognized me and without ado hustled me into his house, upstairs to his bathroom, commenced turning on the water and pulling off my clothes. That bath, and one other I got when further on in the war a chance acquaintance gave me, I have, as pleasant reminiscense of the service. On Friday night we so cold most of us got up at 3:00 and sat around the fires smoking until daylight. That morning, Saturday, we elected officers and during the day were sworn into the service of the United States. Our company came near being put in the Fifth Regiment, but as arms had not been issued to us, another was put in and they marched away that night, and got as far as where the bridges were burned at Cockeysville. I saw lots of acquaintances as that regiment marched down the lane, in the blackness of the darkness, about 7:00 at night— Beaver, Mitchell and William Armstrong of Easton. When I remember how they all went into service, and gained honorable mention, that night, standing on a bank, seeing their faces as the flash of a torch showed them up, I think on what a mere turn of the hand one’s fate depends. As the years went by the turn given by that night’s march determined the fate of the men that were there, the corps they were destined to join, the fields of their service. Our course turned us another way, into the other fields, into the ninth corps. On Sunday we got to drill at 5:00 in the morning. The cold turned us out willingly. With but an interval at breakfast, we worked away with intense interest until noon. At the hour of noon Sunday, the 20th day of April, 1861, our company marched up to the headquarters, drew our arms, an order read assigned us to the Fourth Regiment, and to get ready to march in forty minutes. There was an intense silence for a few seconds when the whole gang broke into a wild cheer and the step to the quarters was rapid, and there was a rush into the tents and a tearing up. At 5:00 we were on board of the cars, the engine toward Philadelphia and amid the cheers of thousands, our course took us that way and determined the whole course of our service. The fires of the burned bridges at Cokeysville by way of Harve de Grace. — J. Merrill Linn. © Copyright 2008 by Mifflinburg Telegraph Weekly Newspaper Top of Page |
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