ted only
the interests of the harvest, and had gone on "gathering into barns."
Those were trying days, it is true, and much sympathy ought to be felt
for the citizen taken thus at disadvantage; but the cry of alarm had
been raised, the Governor had summoned the people to arms, the central
government seemed helpless to defend Harrisburg except as it was
defended indirectly by the army of the Potomac then covering
Washington, and the only certain reliance for the safety of the valley
was the hastily raised militia, chiefly from a neighboring State.

During that never-to-be-forgotten Sabbath day, so strangely "kept,"
there was no flurry among the garrison, judging by the men of the
Twenty-Third, nor any fear shown at any time among those upon whose
courage the fate of Harrisburg seemed likely to rest. While in that
threatened city the chief authorities were staggering under the
herculean work of organizing an unwilling or at least an indifferent
people into a disciplined force capable of resistance, and of infusing
into them somewhat of the patriotic zeal which shone so brightly in the
conduct of their fellow-citizens of Pittsburg; while in that city there
was feverish alarm on every hand, and families were ignominiously
flying with their household goods, crowding the railway trains and the
common highways in their eagerness to escape; while the State officers
were sending off to Philadelphia the archives of the capital, and were
themselves hastening or preparing to remove to the metropolis, which
was to be the provisional capital on the fall of Harrisburg; while
there existed on the opposite side of the Susquehanna these symptoms of
alarm, there prevailed among our untried but trusted men, coupled with
animated speculations concerning the enemy, the calmness of a summer
evening. And this when it was evident to most that there was an enemy
just outside our ramparts whose strength was supposed to be many times
our own, and whose valor was renowned, waiting for the signal to be
launched against us.

There may have been among the general officers of the militia a feeling
of anxiety. Indeed it would be strange were it otherwise. But this
anxiety was doubtless due to the novelty of their position, together
with their sense of the solemn responsibility which a commander bears
in the hour of battle--a sense undulled in them by familiarity with
scenes of carnage. But among the men there was the repose of confidence
and courage.