Two boat-loads of our Division landed last night at 11
o'clock. 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, and
only a small force of hundred days' men, etc., to defend it having skirmished
yesterday with the enemy's advanced guard and kept it from entering the town.
The place is full of rumors, but it's impossible to get any reliable
information. We were followed this afternoon by more of our Division, and all
have been kept busy by General Lew Wallace who is in command, marching about
the city, forming lines of battle to the north of it, etc., presumably to try
and deceive the enemy as to our strength.
There were in Frederick on our arrival here together with
such troops as have arrived since, not including our Division, twenty-five
hundred green troops under Brigadier-General E. B. Tyler, which have never been
under fire to any extent, as follows: Five companies of the First Regiment
Maryland Home Brigade, Captain Chas. J. Brown commanding; the Third Regiment
Maryland Home Brigade, Colonel Chas. Gilpin commanding; the Eleventh Regiment
Maryland Infantry, Colonel Wm. T. Landstreet commanding; three companies of the
One Hundred and Forty-fourth Regiment Ohio National Guard, Colonel Allison L.
Brown commanding; seven companies of the One Hundred and Forty-ninth Regiment
Ohio National Guard, Colonel A. L. Brown commanding; and Captain F. W.
Alexander's Baltimore (Md.) Battery of six three-inch guns; Lieut. Colonel
David R. Clendenin's squadron of Mounted Infantry from the Eighth Illinois
National Guard; a detachment of mounted infantry — probably two companies — from
the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Ohio National Guard, Captains E. H. Lieb and H.
S. Allen commanding, respectively; the Loudoun (Va.) Rangers, and a detachment
of mixed cavalry, Major Charles A. Wells commanding. The Eleventh Maryland and
all the Ohio troops are hundred days' men.
The Third Division, Major General James B. Ricketts commanding,
of the Sixth Corps, consists of two brigades and now has here nine of its
twelve regiments or a force of three thousand three hundred and fifty men as
follows: The First Brigade is commanded by Colonel W. S. Truex of the
Fourteenth Regiment New Jersey Infantry, and is composed of the One Hundred and
Sixth Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Captain E. M. Paine commanding; the
Tenth Regiment Vermont Volunteer Infantry, Colonel W. W. Henry commanding; the
One Hundred and Fifty-first Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, Colonel
William Emerson commanding; the Eighty-seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer
Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Stahel commanding, and the Fourteenth
Regiment New Jersey Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel C. K. Hall commanding. The
Second Brigade, Colonel Matthews R. McClennan commanding is composed of the
Ninth Regiment New York Heavy Artillery, Colonel Wm. H. Seward, Jr. commanding;
the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Regiment Ohio National Guard,
Lieutenant-Colonel Aaron W. Ebright commanding; the One Hundred and Tenth
Regiment Ohio National Guard, Lieutenant-Colonel Otho H. Binkley commanding;
the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Regiment Pennsylvania Infantry, Major Lewis
A. May commanding; and a detachment of the One Hundred and Twenty-second Ohio
Infantry commanded by Lieutenant C. J. Gibson. The Sixth Regiment Maryland
Infantry, Sixty-second Regiment Pennsylvania Infantry and most of the One
Hundred and Twenty-second Regiment of Ohio National Guard of the Second Brigade
have not yet arrived.
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 Monocacy river over a stone bridge about
three miles from, and on through, Frederick centrally, and thence on to
Harper's Ferry, Frederick being about thirty-five miles from Baltimore. The
Georgetown turnpike runs northwesterly crossing the Monocacy river on a covered
wooden bridge at Frederick Junction, about three miles from Frederick, on
through the city which is also about thirty-five miles from Washington, and
thence northwesterly to Sharpsburg, the two pikes crossing each other centrally
in Frederick at right angles. The Georgetown wooden and railroad steel bridges
across the Monocacy at Frederick Junction are about one-fourth of a mile apart,
and the distance between the Georgetown pike wooden bridge and Baltimore
turnpike stone bridge is about three miles with Crum's Ford about midway
between. There are also several fords within two miles or so below the Georgetown
pike wooden bridge where it crosses the Monocacy at Frederick Junction.
SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections
and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 94-8
