| From The Daily Exchange (Baltimore, Md.) |
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| July 11, 1861 |
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| A View of the Scene of Destruction at
Martinsburg |
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Camp at Martinsburg, July 7 |
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Yesterday a reconnaissance was made in the direction of
the Confederate forces by the staff and engineer corps, protected by
a regiment of infantry and the First City Troop. We rode about three
miles along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and then went across the
country about three miles. All along the railroad were scattered
coal cars in long lines, with the coal still burning. |
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Large fires had been kindled around them, burning all the
woodwork and a great deal of the iron. (They were all fine iron
cars, holding about twenty tons each.) Here and there the road led
above them, and, looking down, we could see the inside -- a mass of
red-hot coals. Some small bridges had been burnt with the cars on
them, and, giving way, the cars were left piled one on another in
the small streams below, all battered and bent. We counted the line
of locomotives that had been burnt (forty-one or forty-two in all)
red and blistered with the heat. |
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