Charles Homans's private carriage was, however, ready to pick up tired
men, hot men, thirsty men, men with corns, or men with blisters. They
tumbled into the train in considerable numbers.
An enemy that dared could have made a moderate bag of stragglers at this
time. But they would not have been allowed to straggle, if any enemy
had been about. By this time we were convinced that no attack was to be
expected in this part of the way.
The main body of the regiment, under Major Shaler, a tall, soldierly
fellow, with a moustache of the fighting-color, tramped on their own
pins to the watering-place, eight miles or so from Annapolis. There
troops and train came to a halt, with the news that a bridge over a
country road was broken a mile farther on.
It had been distinctly insisted upon, in the usual Southern style, that
we were not to be allowed to pass through Maryland, and that we were to
be "welcomed to hospitable graves." The broken bridge was a capital spot
for a skirmish. Why not look for it here?
We looked; but got nothing. The rascals could skulk about by night, tear
up rails, and hide them where they might be found by a man with half an
eye, or half-destroy a bridge; but there was no shoot in them.
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