AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
plated burning the Conowingo bridge, but finally concluded to station a party of horsemen at the northern end to prevent the passage of all who were objectionable and burn it if necessary. We were halted by this party, who, guns in hand, surrounded the carriage. It was the first hostile force I had ever confronted and I was curious as well as uneasy. My story, however, had been already concocted. I had been at school at Nottingham in Chester County. The troubles of the time had made my parents uneasy and they had sent the servants for me to take me home to Havre de Grace. The tale was plausible enough and we were permitted to cross the bridge. We reached Uncle Joseph at Mount Pleasant without any further adventure. The events occurring around were sufficiently stirring. The Union men and the secessionists were both aroused and bitter in their antagonism and were about evenly divided. Uncle George P. Whitaker of Principio was a resolute Union man; his son-in-law, Joseph Coudon, was a determined secessionist. They quarreled and severed relations and the latter, on one occasion, only escaped some infuriated opponents by the help of a back window. Another uncle, Washington Pennypacker, living on the Deer Creek, in Harford County, raised the stars and stripes over his home, and as I have written before, was driven out of the state.
On the 18th of April, five companies from Pennsylvania, the advance of a mighty host, had gone through to Washington. The next day Colonel Small, to whom I have referred in connection with Paoli, at the head of the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, and the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, were attacked in Baltimore. Among the wounded was Henry C. Dodge, a printer in the office of the Weekly Phœnix, the Phœnixville newspaper, who returned home with a cut across the hand and established his reputation as a hero. The immediate danger at Havre de Grace soon disappeared. When we reached there a camp had already been established at Perryville, on the opposite side of the
