October 20 — The railroad ride that our Yankee friends so kindly furnished us last night was wearisome in the extreme, as we were shipped in box cars and had to strew ourselves on the floor like hogs. The night was cold and chilly, and although I tried to sleep some on the train, and knocked faithfully and perseveringly at the gates of dreamland, they failed to yield even for a respectable doze. At the Relay House, sometime about midnight, our train was side-tracked for about two hours, and in that time nine heavy freight trains passed us going west; our Yankee guard told us that the trains were all laden with supplies for General Sheridan’s army.
Little before day we arrived in the suburbs of Baltimore, left our box car cage and were marched to Fort McHenry, where we were turned into the fort yard like a herd of cattle. Then and there I unrolled my bed, and sunk down on Mother Earth to snatch a little sleep and have a few pleasant dreams about the thick gloriousness that floats around Uncle Sam’s prisoners of war. I slept until sunrise, and the first thing that my waking eyes beheld was a large three-masted ship, the City of New York, under full sail speeding like something alive across the harbor of Baltimore. That was the first ship I ever saw, and it was a beautiful and interesting sight; the thing moved as gracefully as a swan.
Fort McHenry is located on Whetstone Point near the City of Baltimore, and its guns command Baltimore Harbor. It is constructed of brick, and the present fort was built in 1799 and named in honor of James McHenry of Baltimore, who was President Washington’s first Secretary of War.
We remained in the fort grounds all day until this evening at sunset, when we boarded a little sidewheel steamer, name The Star.
