HEADQUARTERS, FIRST DIVISION N. Y. S. M.,

NEW YORK, April 17, 1861.

In pursuance of General Orders No. 43 from General Headquarters, the Seventh Regiment N. Y. S. M., under command of Colonel Lefferts, is hereby detailed for immediate service at the national capital. Colonel Lefferts will order his regiment to assemble at its armory on Friday, at 3 P. M., armed and equipped for embarkation, each man supplied with provisions for twenty-four hours. Colonel Lefferts will, upon his arrival at Washington, report to General Scott.

The Major-General congratulates the Seventh Regiment upon being the first corps detailed from this State, in response to the call of the constituted authorities, to support the Constitution and to vindicate the honor of that glorious flag which was consecrated by the blood of our fathers. By order of

CHARLES W. SANDFORD,
Major-General Commanding.

The order from Colonel Lefferts was at once issued, and nine hundred and forty-five men immediately reported for duty. The commander, Marshall Lefferts, was just in the prime of life, of fine manly presence, quick of thought and prompt in action, and of sound judgment and great force and strength of character.* The major, Alexander Shaler, afterward served with distinction in the army of the Potomac, and for gallantry and meritorious services was commissioned brigadier-general, and later on breveted major-general. He was conspicuous for his exact discipline in camp and for his coolness in great emergencies. In 1867 he was appointed by Governor Fenton, major-general of the First Division National Guard of the State of New York, which position he has held to the present time, a period of eighteen years. It was a regiment of officers, this " unrivaled body of citizen soldiery "-as Stephen A. Douglas called it. Six hundred and six of its members afterward served as officers. in the Regular and Volunteer Army and Navy of the United States during the civil war. Hundreds sought admittance in vain to its ranks, which

* Marshall Lefferts was forty years of age, a native of Brooklyn, of old Knickerbocker ancestry, and a busy merchant in New York. He furnished the first zinc plated wire used for telegraphic purposes in the United States; was the first President of the New York and New England and of the New York State Telegraphic Companies, and at the time of his death in 1876, was President of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company of New York, and of the Celluloid Manufacturing Company of Newark, New Jersey.

The staff officers of the regiment at this date were Egbert L. Viele, Captain of Engineers; Timothy M. Cheesman, Surgeon; Locke W. Winchester, Quartermaster; John C. Dalton, Surgeon's Mate; Sullivan H. Weston, Chaplain; Meredith Howland, Assistant Paymaster; William Patten, Commissary; John A. Baker, Ordnance Officer; George W. Brainerd, Assistant Quartermaster; Charles J. McClenachan, Military Secretary; J. H. Liebenau, Adjutant. The captains of the several companies were: W. P. Bensel (A), Emmons, Clark (B), James Price (C), William H. Riblet (D). William A. Speaight (E), Benjamin M. Nevers, Jr. (F), John Monroe (G), Henry C. Shumway (H), Henry A. Cragin, 1st Lieut. Commanding (I.), and George C. Farrar (K.).

were already full. During the few hours prior to its departure the business of the city was almost entirely suspended. The entire population seemed to have gone raving mad with excitement. The arrival of Major Anderson from Charleston added powder to the flame. It was sensation upon sensation, panic upon panic. At the places of enlistment everybody seemed to be volunteering, and new regiments were rapidly forming. All

Marshall Lefferts

party differences were lost in that supreme moment. The hatchet was buried, and the bayonet of the Union rose in its stead.

On that fair Friday, April 19, while the gallant Seventh was bidding adieux to home and friends in New York, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, which passed through the city the day before, had reached and was fighting in Baltimore. The thrilling news came just before the Seventh formed in Lafayette Place, and all the fine, frenzied enthusiasm of the nervous American nature was aroused. The excitement as these heroic, dignified,

and admirably drilled and disciplined men of the Seventh wheeled into column, with their faces Washington-ward, was sublime, almost terrific. Men cheered and shouted as men never cheered and shouted before; ladies laughed and sobbed, smiled and wept. For hours the people had swarmed Broadway from curbstone to roof, patiently waiting, and the display of the national colors on every side gave to the whole the effect of some grand carnival scene. The march of the Seventh down Broadway was less a march than a triumphal procession. A faithful and graphic description of the impressive scene is beyond the reach of pen. It was not only becauseas men wrote and exclaimed-" New York loves the Seventh, it has distilled its best blood into it" that tears and caresses were showered like the rain from Heaven upon its members as they moved with firm, elastic step into the unknown; but they had generously abandoned their business pursuits at a sacrifice of untold thousands to defend the beloved flag of the nation at a terrible crisis in its affairs, and their spirit was contagious in the superlative degree. The moral effect upon the country at large can never be fully measured or appreciated. The slightest expression of sympathy with secession was unsafe on that day. While passing the store of Ball, Black & Co., Major Anderson, of Sumter, appeared on the balcony, and the several companies of the Seventh paused successively and joined in the tempest of applause with which he was greeted.

It was past midnight when the regiment reached Philadelphia, and there learned that the revolt of the Marylanders had interposed a bar to the march of troops to Washington. Three railroad bridges had been actively removed within a few hours and all the telegraph wires cut. Colonel Lefferts consulted with his officers and determined to charter a steamer for Annapolis-which was done at once on his own personal responsibility, he drawing on his firm in New York for the money. Before eleven, Saturday morning (April 20), the steamer Boston had been secured, and by three in the afternoon of the same day it was fully equipped and provisioned, and the regiment embarked. While it was steaming down the Delaware the immense mass meeting in Union Square, New York, referred to in another article, was exercising its controling influence over the affairs of the country. On Monday morning, April 22, the little Boston with its precious freight anchored in front of the city of Annapolis where the Eighth Massachusetts, commanded by General Benjamin F. Butler, had arrived before them in the ferryboat Maryland (via Havre de Grace), which was hard and fast on a mud bank. The state and city authorities protested earnestly against the landing of troops and their passage through the city or state in any event; they represented the hostility such as to

render such an attempt perilous in the superlative degree. But Colonel Lefferts and his officers determined to land at once, and force, if necessary, a passage to the National capital. Before landing, however, several hours were spent by the Boston in unavailing efforts to float the Maryland, and finally the New York Seventh marched into the city, and sent their steamer back to debark the Massachusetts men.

Far more memorable than its beginning, or its progress, was the termination of the march of the New York Seventh Regiment. From the most trustworthy information that could be obtained by its commander, the whole country was in arms, the roads infested with guerrillas and bushwhackers, Baltimore secessionists had seized important bridges, the railroad was torn away for many miles, all telegraphic communications severed, and serious resistance must be expected.

After briefly discussing the alarming prospect, the regiment to a man resolved that having left New York for the relief and defense of Washington, it was its duty to face all perils, surmount all obstacles, push rapidly forward and spare no effort to reach its destination. It also determined to reconstruct the railroad track as it went along in order that other troops might follow without detention.

The mettle of these young men, trained only to mercantile pursuits, was here put to the severest test. Unaccustomed to the hardships of camp and field, or exposure, and in an enemy's country, without palatable food, they performed a service which will go down into history as one of the most important events of the War. Two companies of the Massachussetts Eighth seized and occupied the railroad depot, mending a broken locomotive and two miles of railroad track, in readiness for the forward movement. The Second and Sixth Companies of the New York Seventh, Captains Clark and Nevers, were honored with the post of danger-the advance.* Their train was an ingenious contrivance. It comprised two open platform cars formed by sawing off the tops of two old cattle-cars, the locomotive, and two small cars for passengers. On the first platform car was a loaded howitzer, on the second ammunition. An officer stood at the forward end of the first, with a guard of eight men distributed about the howitzer, and one man detailed for the specific purpose of watching for breaks in the road. The Second and Sixth Companies were at first packed into the two small cars. They soon came to where the road was so badly broken that

* Captain Emmons Clark, who was honored with the post of danger on this perilous and important march, has been the Colonel of the Seventh Regiment since June 21, 1864, now just twenty-one years. He was the son of a clergyman, and a graduate from Hamilton College, where he held high rank as a scholar. He has also held the responsible position of Secretary of the Board of Health since 1866, a period of nineteen years