The trip to Washington for the 7th Wisconsin Infantry was an introduction of what would come. On the 24th the Brigade was in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. According to a journal kept by William R Ray of Company F, in his own words:
"We are going to start at three oclock for Washington....There is so much drunkenness and hollering that we cant hear ourselves think. They put us in the cattle and all kinds of cars. Verry dirty. We have loaded our guns to go through Baltimore.
On the 25 Ray says they are on the way, after sleeping in the cattle cars all night. Then on the 26th, in his words:
" We have passed through Baltimore. We slept in the station or depot house in Baltimore. We were received there the warmest of any place that we have passed through yet. It was a delightful sight but I saw one woman that shook her fist at us. We are at Washington Junction now. The fourth Wisconsin Regiment is here as guards for the road and a magnificent bridge that is right here...... Ever since we struck the line of Maryland there is troops stationed to guard the roads to keep secessionists off.
On the 26th of September he says: "We are in Washington and nobody killed nor hurt but a good many sick."
These words are in a book entitled "Four Years With the Iron Brigade: The Civil War Journal of William Ray" edited by Lance and Sherry Murphy. His words describe what Charles Pooch likely also experienced since the companies were kept mostly together. Arlin and I have found this to be one of the best personal records of the Civil War by someone in the 7th Wisconsin Infantry. We have no written record from Charles Pooch himself. Arlin has found pay slips, discharge papers and other War Department documents that help us to be as accurate as we can at the distance of 150 years. If any reader has other authentic sources, please let us know.
Written by Delton Krueger
"We are going to start at three oclock for Washington....There is so much drunkenness and hollering that we cant hear ourselves think. They put us in the cattle and all kinds of cars. Verry dirty. We have loaded our guns to go through Baltimore.
On the 25 Ray says they are on the way, after sleeping in the cattle cars all night. Then on the 26th, in his words:
" We have passed through Baltimore. We slept in the station or depot house in Baltimore. We were received there the warmest of any place that we have passed through yet. It was a delightful sight but I saw one woman that shook her fist at us. We are at Washington Junction now. The fourth Wisconsin Regiment is here as guards for the road and a magnificent bridge that is right here...... Ever since we struck the line of Maryland there is troops stationed to guard the roads to keep secessionists off.
On the 26th of September he says: "We are in Washington and nobody killed nor hurt but a good many sick."
These words are in a book entitled "Four Years With the Iron Brigade: The Civil War Journal of William Ray" edited by Lance and Sherry Murphy. His words describe what Charles Pooch likely also experienced since the companies were kept mostly together. Arlin and I have found this to be one of the best personal records of the Civil War by someone in the 7th Wisconsin Infantry. We have no written record from Charles Pooch himself. Arlin has found pay slips, discharge papers and other War Department documents that help us to be as accurate as we can at the distance of 150 years. If any reader has other authentic sources, please let us know.
Written by Delton Krueger
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