George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[43] direct that he be immediately informed that I was awaiting at the end of the wire an answer to this despatch: “The enemy, numbering six thousand, is marching upon Harper's Ferry. I am here with my regiment, but no artillery. If the enemy has artillery I cannot hold the place. What shall be done? Answer quickly.”

“I will carry him this despatch and answer in twenty minutes,” replies the operator.

It was one o'clock in the morning of the twentieth of August,--not time enough to make great preparation to meet this coming force, whose tramp I could almost hear, I fancied, on the shores of the Potomac. I was somewhat nervous, I admit; events of the past few weeks had made me so. As patiently as I could, I counted ten of the twenty minutes as they passed off into eternity, then twenty and thirty, but no reply. At last I said, “Ask for an answer.”

No response for a moment, and then the cool reply, “I have important despatches to Baltimore, and cannot leave to carry your message.” To say that I was as mild as a morning-glory would be a metaphor, but not a true one.

Cannot leave at this important moment, at a time when so much may depend upon my despatch; Frederick twenty miles away; impossible to send from here; the hours passing swiftly on, and no increase to my force! “Tell him he must go,” I replied.

“I cannot,” responds the operator; “he has cut off all communication with this place, and will not get my despatch.”

“Can you jump him,” I ask, “to a place beyond?”

“Yes, I can reach Baltimore again.”

“Do so, and tell the operator there to tell the operator at Frederick that he must deliver my message immediately.”

The faithful slave of the telegraph at Baltimore so