1st Lieutenant Charles Fessenden Morse, July 26, 1861

Harper's Ferry, July 26, 1861.

Reveille roll-call is just finished, and I have a short time before breakfast to improve by writing. We still garrison the town, and very hard work it is, too, it taking five companies a day to do it, making guard duty come every other day. What we principally have to do is to keep the rumshops closed to the soldiers. At night we have patrols on the streets all about the town, and any one found out after nine P. M. is sent to his house or quarters, or if suspicious-looking, taken to the guard-room, which, by the way, is the very engine house where John Brown made his final stand. The loop-holes and all are just as he left them.

We also guard all the ferries very carefully. The other night, when I was on guard, there was a report brought to me of a fight in a house a little ways off. I took a Sergeant and eight men and went, double quick, to the place; the house was full of men, fighting and drunk. We cleared it in about two minutes, took the noisiest, prisoners, then went back and emptied a rum barrel that had caused the whole of it. Such things were occurring frequently, two or three days ago, but, as the Pennsylvania militia go home, we have less and less of it. They are going home at the rate of two regiments a day, and we are glad of it, for a more undisciplined set of men I never saw, spoiling everything they come near, breaking into houses, robbing orchards, and doing all manner of harm generally. Our force will be about eight thousand, when they are all gone. General Banks arrived here, night before last, with two or three of his aides. We all hope he will do something more for us than Patterson has. You can form no idea of the terrible destruction of government buildings here, without seeing it. For nearly half a mile along the river were these splendid works, and now there is nothing but bare walls and heaps of ruins; they say twelve million dollars will not replace them. All the bridges across the Potomac and Shenandoah are also burned.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 10-11