Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
A BOY’S EXPERIENCE
IN THE
CIVIL WAR 1860–1865
During the Civil War.
My father, a skillful physician by profession, was bytaste and inclination a controversal writer, a contributorto the newspapers, mixing up in the stir of the times.Before the Civil War his energy was devoted to a largeand lucrative practice coupled with activities, social andpolitical. At the opening of the struggle between theNorth and South his sympathies and associations ardentlyenlisted him in the fortunes of his native State, and hefurthered by writing and personal work the adoption ofthe ordinance of secession which had been referred by theState Convention at Richmond to the Citizens of Virginiato adopt or reject. When the State seceded his ardentadvocacy of the Southern cause and his labor in that behalfquickly brought him to the point of either taking theoath of allegiance as a loyal citizen of the United Statesor submitting to imprisonment. He declined the oath andwas sent as a political prisoner in the spring of 1862 toCamp Chase near Columbus, Ohio, where he remainedfor nine months, when a special exchange was secured forhim. This latter event he owed to a personal circumstance,one of those matters he usually evidenced an aptitude toturn to account. It occurred thus: one day a number ofprisoners recently captured were brought in, and he learnedthat shortly before, the command to which they had belongedhad taken a number of Union prisoners, and among thema brother of Dr. Pancost of Philadelphia. My father whohad pursued his medical studies at Philadelphia and hadbeen a student under Dr. Pancost at the Jefferson MedicalCollege wrote to his former instructor, telling him ofhis brother’s capture and asking him to secure a specialexchange of my father for his brother. This he accomplishedand through friends my father was extended permission2to have his wife and three of his children accompanyhim by flag of truce through the lines to Richmond.Ample time was allowed him to arrange his affairs for thisand he was further permitted to take unlimited baggage.Our route was to Baltimore, to Fortress Monroe, to CityPoint, Petersburg and Richmond. Baltimore was reachedbetween three and four o’clock in the morning and uponthe recommendation of a fellow passenger we soughtquarters at the Eutaw House. This hotel, then as nowat the northwest corner of Eutaw and Baltimore Streets,was found crowded and we located in the parlor until laterin the day a room was assigned us overlooking the courton Eutaw Street. A circumstance to impress was thecrowded condition of the pavement extending from EutawStreet to Calvert far in excess of what now exists after thelapse of over forty years, thus indicating the inrush hereas the border city of the Civil War. The day our trunkswere to be examined Major Constable