Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/274

 The newspapers reported that the City of Washington had been cut off from its railroad communications through Baltimore, and was almost entirely defenseless; that a rebel force might invade it at any moment and do no end of mischief without meeting serious opposition; that the department buildings were being barricaded and the government clerks armed with muskets; and that the government needed the help of every man who could get there. I thought it my duty to hurry to Washington at once, and offer what service I could render. I put the pistols I had carried in the Kinkel affair into my hand-bag, and started off. I shall never forget the contrast between this and the preceding journey. When only a short time before I had traveled from Washington westward, a dreadful load of gloomy expectancy seemed to oppress the whole country. Passengers in the railway cars talked together in murmurs, as if afraid of the sound of their own voices. At the railroad stations stood men with anxious faces waiting for the newspapers, which they hastily opened to read the headings, and then handed the papers to one another with sighs of disappointment. Multitudes of people seemed to be perplexed not only as to what they might expect, but also as to what they wished. And now what a change! Every railroad station filled with an excited crowd hurrahing for the Union and Lincoln. The Stars and Stripes fluttering from numberless staffs. The drum and fife resounding everywhere. The cars thronged with young men hurrying to the nearest enlistment place, and anxious only lest there be no room left for them in the regiments hastily forming, or lest the regiments so formed be too late to secure Washington from a rebel “coup-de-main.” To judge from the scenes I witnessed on the railroads, old party differences were forgotten. Men who had shaken their fists against one another during the political campaign, now shook