Osceola Lewis, memoir
in reference to 1866 (Publication Date)
“Upon reaching ‘Monocacy,’ or Frederick Junction, about 4 P. M., some fifty miles from the city, instructions came from Major General Wallace, commanding the Department, to disembark the troops and to proceed no further until specially ordered. That night we bivouacked on the loyal soil of Maryland…The country was rich with golden harvest crops and nature clothed the scenery with the finest garb of the season. From every house on the line of the railroad, as the long trains of troops rolled by, flags and handkerchiefs were waving; old men and matrons, fair ladies and wondering children, farm laborers and Negroes, looked on, greeted, cheered and wished up ‘God speed.’ The contrast between these fertile fields and peaceful homes, and the barren wastes and desolated places of war-begrimed Virginia, was so impressive that we imagined now the air was purer—the water sweeter—and that our grassy couches equalled [sic] in comfort the downy cushions of luxuriant home. To borrow and expression of Captain S--, it was a consoling fact that ‘if a man was to be killed in such a country, he would at least receive a decent Christian burial.’”
Author
Name: Osceola Lewis
Unit: 138th Regiment Pennsylvania Infantry, Co. I
Document Information
Type: Memoir
Subject(s):
- Descriptions of Locale
Event Location: Frederick City, Frederick Co., MD
Document Origin: N/A
Source
Lewis, Osceola. History of the One Hundred and Thirty-Eighth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Norristown: Wills, Iredell & Jenkins, 1866, 112-3.
