It was about eight o'clock in the evening when the Regiment formed line for the last time on the parade ground and the men marched off for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station. The drums were beating and laughter and shouting were quite in contrast with the solemn demeanor of former passages through Washington, then intent on making and retaining a reputation for discipline and self control.

July 10, '63 At the station there was a considerable wait for the Thirty-fourth Massachusetts and two batteries which were to accompany us. Hence it was late of the ninth or, rather early in the morning of the 10th, before the start from the city was made. Seven hundred and fifty strong, a large shrinkage for the nine months of peaceful service, loaded upon freight cars, the Regiment was headed for Harper's Ferry. All sorts of items made the journey long and tedious; says one of the boys, "The locomotive came near running over a 'nigger'; the train broke in two; one of the cars ran off the track," and another observer comments on the heat and closeness of the night and cars. The ride during the day was varied with characteristic incidents of the halts where efforts were made to secure food from nearby houses; at Frederick Junction where a branch road runs up to the city, made famous by Barbara Frietchie and Whittier, other troops joined the train and the same sped on to its destination, not exactly the Ferry itself, but Sandy Hook, the Maryland village opposite.

Darkness had settled down when the train reached the point of unloading, and the debarkation was effected with every one wishing he could see the wonderful panorama that the place afforded, but before the scenery could be enjoyed there was the biggest climb before the men that they had ever undertaken. The road was only an apology for one, though its mud was deep and adhesive; following closely one's file leader was necessary, if a man would keep in the procession. Finally there came a real climb up a mountain's side with every man for himself, until there was a blessed emergence on a plateau where, mud encrusted, the men threw themselves upon the ground and slept the sleep of exhaustion. The sun of the 11th, was well up the sky, ere the wearied climbers awoke to admire the scene developed around them. It did not matter much at what time the waking came, since there were no rations and the company cooks had no facilities for cooking even were rations ready. It was not till a large detail had gone down to the railroad and brought hence the hardtack, coffee and pork, that eating could be resumed, each one becoming his own cook, though some of the soldiers declared that a twenty-four hours' fast, along with unusual exertion had made the repast the most appetising they had eaten in months.

Those thus inclined had a chance to view a landscape which had engaged the attention of Washington and Jefferson, and which in more recent times had been the observatory of John Brown, previous to the raid which, without doubt, had helped precipitate the great conflict. Down along the opposite banks of the Potomac were the blackened ruins of the great armory, where had been made so many guns, now in the hands of the enemy, and nearer the middle of the village was the fire-engine house which was to go down into history as the "John Brown Fort." At Harper's Ferry, the Shenandoah joins the Potomac, and, as a point of vantage, it had been held by both rebel and Federal. A year before, the place had been given up by Col. D. S. Miles to Stonewall Jackson, and is now in Confederate possession, though the hurried construction of a bridge across the Shenandoah indicates a disposition on the part of the men in gray to depart. The retreat of Lee from Gettysburg had involved the entire region in uncertainty, hence the ordering out of regiments from Washington, and the presence in the immediate locality of the Eighth, Forty-sixth and Fifty-first Massachusetts, nine months' regiments, which on their way home from North Carolina were shunted off into this section, along with the Thirty-ninth, forming a brigade under the command of General Henry S. Briggs, first colonel of the Tenth Infantry, also a Bay State organization.

While individuals might improve the opportunity to admire the locality and to secure whatever the vicinity afforded in the way of food, it was not a tour of observation that took these men to this elevated section, and about noon of Sunday, the 12th, came orders to move, but according July 12, '63 to traditional custom, the order was not carried out until six o'clock. The march of the preceding night had convinced many that they were too heavily laden, and there being near the camp an elderly gentleman of a most obliging nature, he consented to take charge of bundles which the men made up, and, carefully marked, left in his care, to be called for later. Of course many who relieved themselves of burdens never called for their possessions and the most of them thought the man himself would become tired of his charge; but when years afterwards, a Woburn veteran tried the experiment of writing for his package, it came back to him forthwith, a remarkable tribute to the honesty and system of the man. During the ensuing night very many, who had not thus anticipated the exactions of the march, lessened their burdens by throwing away what had become intolerable.

The roads, trod by new regiments, were always marked by just such evidence of the lessons of experience. The regiments thus starting were the Eighth, Forty-sixth, Fifty-first and Thirty-ninth Massachusetts, forming the Fourth Provisional Brigade of the Second Division, First Army Corps; the respective commanders being Generals John Newton of the corps, John C. Robinson of the division, and Henry S. Briggs of the brigade. The Thirty-fourth, which had accompanied the Thirty-ninth from Baltimore, remained and gave the parting good word as the Thirty-ninth departed, the two organizations not to meet again until the homeward march through Richmond in 1865.