“Let them go,” said I; “their business is to report at Baltimore. They will report that we have gone to Harper's Ferry, and that may cause their troops, if there are any, to go there too.”
I chose the hour of six o'clock for departure, as, at the rate I intended to move, it would bring me at the station in Baltimore just at sunset, which was the hour I thought best fitted for me to arrive there, as darkness gathers very suddenly in that latitude after sunset.
When we had marched about two miles up the railroad we halted. In the two forward cars was a company of picked men of the Sixth Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Watson, with my military secretary, the late Richard S. Fay, acting as his aid. This company was detached to go to Frederick to arrest Ross Winans, and bring him down to the Relay House, and then by the shortest road to take him to Annapolis. All of this was done with promptness and despatch, and in the morning Mr. Winans found himself at my headquarters in Annapolis with sentinels before his door.
The remainder of the train with the troops then backed down past the Relay House toward Baltimore, and just at sunset we were at the Baltimore station. There was substantially nobody there, because the passenger and baggage trains had long ago ceased to run.
The orders which contained the first information that the troops had of their destination, and what was to be done, were distributed on the cars. These orders informed them of the manner of their line of march from the place of debarkation to Federal Hill, under a competent guide, and instructed them that they should take possession of it, and make necessary preparation to hold it ; that the battery would be distributed in three sections, one in the centre, one in the rear of the first two companies, and one in the front of the last two companies; that no halt in the march should be made or any shot fired except to repel an attack; that no soldier should fire his musket without command; that if any shot were fired from any house by which any man was hurt, the column should halt, a detail should be put in that house, and the building fired, the column remaining, at least until it was fully burned, so as to protect its rear.
