The drive from Hancock to Cumberland is a very mountainous
forty-four miles — total distance from Hagerstown, sixty-six miles. We met with
no further adventure on the road, although the people were very inquisitive,
but I never opened my mouth. One woman in particular, who kept a toll-bar,
thrust her ugly old head out of an upper window, and yelled out, “Air they
a-fixin' for another battle out there?” jerking her head in the direction of
Hagerstown. The driver replied that, although the bunch of rebels there was
pretty big, yet he could not answer for their fixing arrangements, which he
afterwards explained to me meant digging fortifications.
We arrived at Cumberland at 7 P.M. This is a great coal
place, and a few weeks ago it was touched up by “Imboden,” who burnt a lot of
coal barges, which has rendered the people rabid against the Rebs. I started by
stage for Johnstown at 8.80 P.M.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 303-4
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