Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[438] and in the course of the afternoon both regiments were landed and quartered in the buildings of the Academy (the National property), when the members of the Seventh hastened to share their rations with their famished friends. The threat of the secessionists, that if Butler should land with the intention of passing over the railway to Washington, the track should be destroyed, was carried out. The rails were removed and hidden, and locomotives were taken in pieces and concealed.

Terrible stories of the gathering of insurgents at Annapolis Junction, and other places on the route to Washington, now came to the ears of General Butler and Colonel Lefferts. The former did not believe half that was told him. He had positive information that the secessionists had torn up much of the railway between Annapolis and the Junction, and carried off the materials, and that bitterness of spirit prevailed everywhere; yet he resolved to move forward at once and rebuild the road, for over it supplies, and also other troops, must follow him. He again invited Colonel Lefferts to join him. At first that prudent commander declined, thinking it best to wait for reenforcements.¹ He changed his mind, and early the next morning the two regiments joined hands in vigorous preparations for that strange, eventful march on the Capital, which has no parallel in history.

In the mean time, two companies of the Massachusetts troops had seized the railway station, and there found a locomotive engine disabled and concealed. “Does any one know any thing about this machine?” inquired General Butler. “Our shop made that engine, General,” said Charles Homans, of the Beverly Light Guard, as he looked sharply at it. “I guess I can put her in order and run her.” --“Do it,” said the General; and it was soon done, for that regiment was full of engineers, workers in metal, and mechanics of all kinds. It seemed like a providential organization, made expressly, with its peculiar leader, for the work in hand. Such impediments of civil authority, hostile feeling, armed resistance, and destructive malignity, would have appalled almost any other man and body of men; but Butler generally exhibited an illustration of the truth of the saying, “Where there's a will there's a way,” and the Massachusetts Eighth was an embodiment of the axiom. The engine was speedily repaired; the rails hidden, some in thickets, and some in the bottom of streams, were hunted up, and on the evening of the 23d, the troops were nearly ready for a forward movement, when General Butler formally took military possession of the Annapolis and Elkridge Railway. Governor Hicks protested against such occupation, on the ground that it would prevent the assembling of the Legislature, called to meet at Annapolis on the 26th. General Butler reminded the Governor that his Excellency had given as a reason why the troops should not land, that they could not pass over the road because “the Company had taken up the rails, and they were private property. It is difficult to see,” said the General, “how it can be, that if my troops could not pass over the railroad one way, the members of the Legislature could pass the other way.” ² He told the Governor that he was there to maintain the laws, and, if possible, protect the road from destruction by a mob. “I am endeavoring,” he said, “to save and ”