Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/307

Rh speech, stood side by side with the Celt in his check shirt, muttering coarse oaths, and the faces of both were turned toward the South.

There was much in the cause to awaken the sympathies of the stern moralists of the community about Kennett, for, down at the bottom of the contest, lay the principle of justice to the lowly and freedom to the enthralled. Men of their faith, for standing by the friendless and oppressed, had suffered martyrdom in the South, and insult and contumely in the North, and now the struggle had come.

The first name signed upon the muster roll of Kennett was that of Charles Frederick Taylor. The earnestness and patriotism he had exhibited, led to his selection as captain, and ere many days had elapsed his company was in Harrisburg and incorporated with the “Bucktail” regiment. The “Bucktails” won, unaided and alone, the first victory of the Army of the Potomac, and on their banner were inscribed all the brilliant engagements in which it participated. Against that army the rebel horde hurled its whole strength and the Pennsylvania Reserves were ever in the front. During those two earliest years of the war, when there were the hardest fighting and most suffering, when the blows fell thick and fast, and both the combatants fresh and eager for the fray were straining every nerve to gain the ascendancy, this youthful hero experienced all the vicissitudes of a soldier's career.

At one time he was leading his command in the brunt of the fight, and at another, was suffering from squalor and hunger amid the loathsomeness of a southern, dungeon. Ere long he was commanding the regiment, and had won the proud distinction of being the youngest commissioned Colonel in the army of the Potomac. And now, after years of strife and bloodshed, the turning point was reached. The hill of difficulty had been