Research

Firsthand Accounts

Search Documents












Lemuel Abijah Abbott, diary
July 21, 1864

“We marched through Leesburg with stars and stripes waving and bands playing national airs, something unusual for us to do without it's a large place. Rumor says that our rear guard burned the place, but I don't believe it, although...

Full Details
Lemuel Abijah Abbott, diary
July 8, 1864

“We took the cars at once for Frederick, Md., and arrived there at 10 o'clock a. m. to-day, finding the city nearly deserted by its inhabitants.”

Full Details
Lemuel Abijah Abbott, diary
July 8, 1864

“With the Georgetown or Washington and Baltimore turnpikes both passing through Frederick, it is easy to see why this is an important point as viewed from a military standpoint. The latter runs in a westerly direction from Baltimore, crosses the...

Full Details
Delavan Bates, letter
September 22, 1862

"…I am satisfied, have plenty to eat such as it is, crackers, coffee regular, beef, rice, beans, and mixed vegetables, dried for soup occasionally, and sometimes we have an opportunity of buying bread, potatoes, apples, peaches, cakes, cheese, chickens by...

Full Details
Delavan Bates, letter
September 22, 1862

“We are now about 10 miles north of Sharpsburgh. Saturday night we commenced marching at midnight, the report being received that the rebels had crossed into Maryland again. We were hurried right through, I was officer of the guard that...

Full Details
Delavan Bates, letter
November 6, 1862

"When I last wrote to you I told you I was stricken with the fever and should have to go to the hospital a short time. The regimental hospital had no medicine and so I was sent to Hagerstown to...

Full Details
Delavan Bates, letter
November 27, 1862

"Here I am yet in Hagerstown on Thanksgiving Day. The weather is splendid, not a particle of snow, middling cool. The sun shining brightly and 1, myself, feeling very nice. I shall not go out today as I have a...

Full Details
Delavan Bates, letter
July 21, 1863

“We are wending our way down the old track again where our army passed last fall. We shall not push Lee very hard, I think, until the conscripts are received. Capt. Galpin has gone with a squad to fetch enough...

Full Details
William H. Beach, memoir
September 1862

Entering Frederick in September, 1862: “The Federal army had never before seen such a reception as was given here. In every doorway and in every window were women and young girls waving the Union flag and in every way manifesting...

Full Details
William H. Beach, memoir
September 1862

"There was a secession sentiment in Emmitsburg. Some of the officers entering the town in advance of the column were taken for the foremost of Lee’s army. They did not correct the impression, and were well treated by the southern...

Full Details
Scroll to Top