On the 15th June the whole battalion having been collected, it started on its first march on the evacuation of Harper's Ferry. The weather was intensely hot, and the roads dusty, but the men, though suffering themselves, were too much amused at the straggling marching of the other troops to mind it. They camped that night near Charlestown and the next near Bunker Hill.
On the 17th June news flew through the ranks that Patterson had crossed the Potomac and was approaching to give battle. This was the first flurry of war to the volunteers. Fences were levelled; troops massed or deployed; batteries held together to be put in position; cavalry galloped to and fro, and all the usual preliminaries to battle gone through with. But it was an unfounded anticipation. Patterson hearing of our approach precipitately retreated and recrossed the river, while Johnston marched leisurely towards Winchester.
The first blood of this second revolution was shed by Maryland men on the 19th of April, and the battalion hoped to take part in a second battle of the 17th June at Bunker Hill.
When the army arrived near Winchester it was brigaded and the battalion placed in the Third brigade, Brigadier-General Bernard E. Bee. While here the condition of the men and officers was most deplorable. They had all come from home without a change of clothes — a months campaign about Harper's Ferry and the march had destroyed their shoes and their apparel. The new uniforms and clothing procured by Mrs. Johnson, in Richmond, had not yet arrived and they were as ragged and tattered as Falstaff's crew. Notwithstanding this they were selected by General Johnston to return to Harper's Ferry and finish the destruction of some buildings left there. On the 16th June the First Maryland regiment was organized by adding Captain Dorsey's and Captain Murray's companies to the battalion, and the appointment of Arnold Elzey, a gallant and able officer of United States artillery, Colonel; George H. Steuart, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Bradley T. Johnson, Major. At the time of the above order from General Johnston, Colonel Elzey and the two companies from Richmond, had not arrived. The battalion consequently marched from Winchester under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Steuart.
Near Harper's Ferry he divided it, entering the place on one side with four companies, while Major Johnson, with the remaining four, entered the other, after saving 70,000 seasoned gun stocks, and sending them off by the cars. The rifle factory, and other United States property, was fired and burnt on the return of the command to Winchester.
