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| CHAPTER IX. AN OVATION IN NEW YORK. RECEIVED BY THE SEVENTH NEW YORK AND PRONOUNCED THE HANDSOMEST, BEST DRILLED AND MOST SOLDIERLY COMMAND EVER SEEN IN THAT CITY. The next day the regiment visited New York and underwent the ordeal of a comparison with the famous Seventh, one of the most widely known military organizations in the country. The Maryland men traveled by rail to Sandy Hook, and then by the steamer Nenersink to New York. The Seventh awaited them on Broadway, the right resting on Battery Place. Passing Colonel Emmons Clarke's command, the Fifth rested near Bowling Green until the Seventh had taken the right of the column, and then the march uptown commenced. Dense crowds lined the sidewalk, and the Fifth received an ovation. Welcoming cheers were sent up all along the route, and while the Seventh received the usual amount of applause, it was evident that all eyes that day were for the Fifth. On the previous Saturday the Seventh Regiment Armory had burned, and the banquet, which the Seventh gave to the Fifth, was served at Irving Hall. In his speech of welcome at this banquet, Colonel Clarke, of the Seventh, adverted to a fact of much interest to {he visitors. "Last Saturday" he said, "there was saved from the flames that enveloped the Seventh Regiment Armory a valuable historical painting of the British attack on Fort McHenry, during the War of 1812, which was presented to this Regiment by the Baltimore City Guard, and which has been cherished for many years as a sacred memento of the friendship which existed between the two organizations. During that unhappy period, when our country was distracted with civil war, the Seventh Regiment was stationed for several months at Fort Federal Hill. "Although in those days men who should have been friends were in deadly hostility; although our presence in your city was not agreeable to all its citizens, the fact that our lot was cast in your city for so long a period naturally creates a lasting interest in its history now that peace smiles upon a happy, united country, and now that the animosities and bitterness of the past are forever in oblivion buried." |