resolute air, answered
that the way to Washington was not supposed to be dangerous, and the
men could be armed and equipped, he was assured, as soon as they
reached there. It would be done at Harrisburg, if possible, and
certainly if any hostility should be shown in Maryland. The
President wanted the regiments at once, and Ohio's volunteers were
quite as ready to go as any. He had no choice, therefore, but to
order them off. The order was obeyed; but the obedience was with bad
grace, and I felt misgivings as to the officer's fitness to
command,--misgivings which about a year afterward were vividly
recalled with the scene I have described.

No sooner were these regiments off than companies began to stream in
from all parts of the State. On their first arrival they were
quartered wherever shelter could be had, as there were no tents or
sheds to make a camp for them. Going to my evening work at the State
House, as I crossed the rotunda, I saw a company marching in by the
south door, and another disposing itself for the night upon the
marble pavement near the east entrance; as I passed on to the north
hall, I saw another, that had come a little earlier, holding a
prayer-meeting, the stone arches echoing with the excited
supplications of some one who was borne out of himself by the
terrible pressure of events around him, whilst, mingling with his
pathetic, beseeching tones as he prayed for his country, came the
shrill notes of the fife, and the thundering din of the inevitable
bass drum from the company marching in on the other side. In the
Senate chamber a company was quartered, and the senators were there
supplying them with paper and pens, with which the boys were writing
their farewells to mothers and sweethearts whom they hardly dared
hope they should see again. A similar scene was going on in the
Representatives' hall, another in the Supreme Court room. In the
executive office sat the governor, the unwonted noises, when the
door was opened, breaking in on the quiet business-like air of the
room,--he meanwhile dictating despatches, indicating answers to
others, receiving committees of citizens, giving directions to
officers of companies and regiments, accommodating himself to the
wilful democracy of our institutions which insists upon seeing the
man in chief command and will not take its answer from a
subordinate, until in the small hours of the night the noises were
hushed, and after a brief hour of effective, undis