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Blair County Newspaper Articles

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Items from the Altoona Tribune, Altoona, Pa.,

Wednesday, October 7, 1863

Letter from the 84th Reg. P. V.
 
HEADQUARTERS CO. K, 84TH REG. P. V.,
NEAR CULPEPPER, VA., SEPT. 29, 1863.

MESSRS. EDITORS: - Without previous introduction, although once an apprentice in your peaceful town, I must relate to you a circumstance which occurred in our camp this morning. Here, as at home, the Governor's election is creating quite a sensation, and probably we feel more deeply and would be more effected by the result than those at home. Discussions, political ones I mean, very spirited, have occurred daily for the last few weeks. The soldiers are alive with that magic energy which infuses itself into the heart of every loyal citizen on election day. The same interest in the contest for Governor is manifested here as at home, and probably more, but as discussions seldom result in definite or impartial decisions, it was finally proposed to hold an election to determine the true sentiment of the 84th in reference to the candidates for Governor of Pennsylvania. We had it very quietly and, the boys say, very dry. But to give our friends at Altoona, and throughout the county, an idea of the respect, esteem and loving devotion the old 84th cherishes for Andrew G. Curtin, I send you the result.

Taking the above as a criterion, no one would doubt the re-election of Gov. A. G. Curtin, could the men who fight for the liberties others enjoy have the privilege of exercising the elective franchise. This election, although not considered legal, is a fair illustration of every regiment from Pennsylvania, and what the result would be if the soldier were allowed to vote.

But, aside from political matters, our friends, through this sham election, have an exhibit of the present strength of the different companies in the regiment. There are some seventy men absent as prisoners. Of this number, 29 are members of company K, who were taken prisoners at the battle of Chancellorville, May 3d. The loss of company K, in that battle, was as follows: - Killed 1, wounded 7, prisoners 29.

Company K, entered the field with 91 men - received by consolidation 37 - took into the battle of Chancellorville 50 - present strength, including absentees, 79 men.

As a company, ours has been very fortunate. Although it suffered severely in prisoners, yet they exist. But four of old company I (known as Hooper's company) yet remain. It was consolidated with company K, a Clearfield company, October 9th 1862. I mention this in order that our friends may keep pace with us. The boys all join with me sending their respects to our friends and acquaintances, not forgetting those "over the hill" in Collinsville.

Respectfully Yours,
ALLAN H. NIXSON.
Capt. Co. K, 84th Regt. P. P.

Letter from "August Sontag."

A call for little "Blossom" - Going over the Alleghenies - What "Sunshine" thinks about the scenery - The C. & P. R. R. - Cleveland city upon a slippery foundation - Customs of the city - Our contemplated trip over to Detroit, &c.

CLEVELAND, October 7th, 1863. Little "Blossom," the brown autumn season has come, and the new moon, that last year we saw looking down into the notch of the Cove Mountains, is again beaming upon us. Shall it look upon all the lovers of nature and miss two who worship it so blindly and devotedly? No, this must not - cannot be. So, come away from your secluded forest home, and permit Sontag to be your protector and enjoy your society, with that of "Sunshine," who shall play "mentor" in our imaginations. Yes, come away, while "Sunshine" puts the last cap-stone to the temple of erudition which she is building in the minds of the neophytes and prepares for her own flight into the hyperborean regions of the North. She heeds the call and comes - jockey hat, Solfarino, Garabaldi and all - all except the Arab Bumons, in place of which she substitutes a stout shawl of the Evans Tartan, which indicates that she is going first on Lake Erie, instead of the Hudson, and that she will, by and by, be looking upon the famous Commodore Perry's battle-field, instead of the Hudson Highlands, the Hills of Ulster and the Catskills.

"Sunshine" is temporarily drowsy, and only catches the grand scenery sweeping to the left of us, as we ascend the Eastern slope of the Allegheny Mountains, in fitful glimpses in the midst of naps, not at all favorable to her making out a very correct map of the country through which she is passing, in the event of her ever taking a fancy in this direction. "Sunshine" does not wake up altogether until the Brakeman calls out "Cresson," and it is to be supposed that through her sleepy brain runs some faint recollections of a "hot supper," for her prim little lips, with cupids bow spanning the upper arch, are seen to smack suspiciously and she springs upright with a muttered exclamation which we construed into "tea biscuits hot." It is only justice to the little lady to say that she indignantly denies having uttered any such exclamation, and that she only claims to have said that she "saw distinctly to the top." Those who choose to spiritualize the real in this manner may believe her version, but Sontag has a decided preference to his own.

We have the rear car and there are not many legs to stumble over (as they have all gone to bed) and not many seats to fall against, as we take our way to the rear platform, leaving poor little "Sunshine" in dreamland until we return. We had just gone clattering through a deep rock-cut when we took our places on the platform. With one hand I grasped the iron railing and with the other wound around the waist of little "Blossom," - who shudders at the swaying of the train, and suffers more than a little with the cinders that will fly into her bright eyes, but who bears herself marvelously well, notwithstanding - we are flying down the grade at a break-neck speed, showing, oh! so much plainer, as realized from such a position. The skirting hills, the trees, the far away mountains, all fly away as if we were in bird-flight, and the long double line of track, that look like streams of molten lead, stretches out - out - out behind us, as if the train was some monstrous mechanical spider and this the web it was stretching around the whole globe in its flight. Then we dash around a curve and across the viaduct, catch a moment's glimpse down into a dizzy gulf of some hundred feet, with the tall pines looking like mere bushes at the bottom, and with a silver cascade of such marvelous beauty, dashing down through the trees at the right, that it seems a sacrilege to fly away from it with no moment to pause. A few moments longer on the down grade and we fly over a bridge which spans the Connemaugh, a rapid river, and rounding a curve beyond we look back and have a magnificent side view of the admirable structure.

"Sunshine" does not fairly wake up until we are passing the mammoth "Cambria Iron Works," which she thinks look like Mount Vesuvius - and have left the Alleghenies far behind, and we are running nearly due West along a plateau of land from which we catch sight of the Connemaugh Valley, with a range of hills lifting themselves across the valley in every shape of mountain beauty, and every variety of changing light and shadow. Then the bright eyes flash and the little Form trembles with the first actual sensation of the journey, while the red lips quiver out "Look! Look! there are the mountain lights and shadows I have been looking for so long! and what a beautiful valley that is, broken up with its woods and farm lands, and how magnificent the whole scene is altogether!" Right, "Sunshine," the chord has echoed at the right moment. You are not the first, by many thousands of the bright young faces that have flashed with a new pleasure, and the fresh young hearts that have bounded with a new sensation, when catching that first of the unequalled views of mountain, valley and river, studding the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Now all alive and awake, that flash of the eye is not dimmed and that new tingle of the blood is everything but lost, as a flash of bright water shows through the heavy trees that skirt the road to the right, and we break out directly on the left bank of the coy and changeable Connemaugh. Such a scene as this! The river winding and curving so as almost to carry out the outrageous fancy of the Rio Grande, at the time of Taylor's campaign in Mexico, of being so crooked that the wild ducks, trying to fly across, got confused and found themselves back on the same side from which they started, the bold, rocky and wooded banks, half covered with foliage with the first tinge of brown autumn upon the leaves, making visible the strata of rocks, and the Connemaugh, narrow, rapid, sweeping along with quiet force, running over rocks of its bed with the mad rush of a childish and untaught Niagara rapid; the cleft of the river through the rocky gorge guiding not only the passage of its own waters, but that of the iron road upon which we are riding, and that of the Penn'a Canal which formerly done so heavy a share of the drudgery of transportation. Over on the other side of the stream occasionally an aqueduct takes the canal up bodily, as a maid would a tubful of water for her morning's wash, and carries it over to the other side of the river; and yet again, little tumbles and cascades coming down like great falls in miniature, and laughing saucily down the bank, where the flow of water is so great as to allow of an escape. Such a scene as all this is not to be met with every day, even by eyes that open upon broader prospects than "Sunshine's;" and it is to be respected accordingly.

Canals are generally associated in the mind with the idea of "Holland and the dead level;" and there certainly never was an artificial water course made for the drudgery of clumsy canal boats, gifted with so romantic a setting of rock and hill, as the old Penn'a Canal. Oblivious of the fact that the tow-path passes under every bridge, with the fleet of "creeping things," as "Sunshine" calls them, she is a little puzzled to know how the boats get by the bridge, and finally comes to the conclusion that as each is reached, the mules (they move so rapidly) must be in the habit of taking a flying leap into the air, dragging the boat after them, after the manner of one of the fabled fiving chariots, and coming down all right, but with somewhat of a splash, on the other side. Incredulous "Sunshine." She thinks she recognizes one of these men - the one who holds an umbrella over his head while he steers the boat - and thinks that she once saw him handling molasses casks, down on the wharves, with a parasol and a pair of lemon-colored kids.

"Sunshine's" eyes are very young and very bright and the little head goes dodging and perking this way and that, making discoveries of beautiful points of scenery that are almost fatiguing to Sontag; but he is well repaid after all, for what glorious glimpses are some of those ahead? Peak after peak of the hills rising away back behind each other, clothed in in every variety of a light misty veil and cloud shadow; and what more quiet but equally glorious glimpses are those behind, of sudden bends and curves in the river, the water sleeping calm and placid, and the whole bank of rock and tree so mirrored there that the stream might have been made but as a looking-glass for the morning toilet of the Dryads. Once the slight frame starts and shudders, as we are rounding the very edge of a precipice - Pack-Saddle Hollow- and the car leaning over at an angle of about thirty degrees, while the river glances dark and solemn at least a hundred feet below. If anything gives way, merry "Sunshine" and confiding "Blossom;" yes, if anything should give way on a railroad train, at this high altitude and speed, the chances are ten to one that our brief history would be closed up from that moment; and so what is the difference? These thoughts are something to be remembered, and mayhaps even dreamed about in the future. But, enough here. As midnight clones down upon us, we will close our eyes and rest until aroused by the light of the street lamps, or the shouting of the hackmen, at the Erebus of smoke.

"All rail to the Lake," is a proud thought, and as we glide smoothly over the rails of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh R. R., all nature seems

"Glowing with life, by breezes fanned,
Luxuriant, lovely, as she came
Fresh in her youth from God's own hand,"

and as a writer once said, "No wonder that Cooper, in his tales of wild adventure, when the woodman's axe had echoed in every vale of the Eastern mountains, drove his hero forth to the haunts of nature in the West, to gaze upon the setting sun, passing away, not behind towering granite piles, but gradually sinking into the bosom of the quiet forrest."

Cleveland is a beautiful city, overlooking Lake Erie, and upon first sight our imagination pictured the city, some time in the future, breaking loose from this continent and taking a dive to the bottom of the lake. Cleveland can boast of her wide, clean streets, and particularly Euclid and Prospect streets, where we notice a great many pretty young ladies, who, at twilight, may be seen seated upon the best rug taken from the parlor and spread upon the front door-step - a thing rarely to be seen in the East - laughing and chatting gaily; coquettish looking houses, good hotels, especially the Angier House, under the management of Coe Ross, one of the most courteous landlords we have ever met. Through the kind invitation of Capt. Pierce - a gentleman of polished manners and who knows how to "run a boat" - we purpose leaving for Detroit by the evening line, a trip we have had in contemplation for a long time. We will write you again when we reach Niagara Falls. Until then, adieu.

Yours, truly,
AUGUSTUS SONTAG.

Altoona Tribune, Altoona, Pa., Wednesday, October 7, 1863, page 2

LOCAL ITEMS.

The subject of the following notice, which we clip from the Hollidaysburg Register, was brought to this place, on Thursday evening of last week. His remains were received at the depot by a military escort and taken to the residence of his brother-in-law, Samuel I. Fries, where they were kept until 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning when they were placed on the Branch train and taken to Hollidaysburg for interment:

CORPORAL GEORGE W. BOGGS. - Another of our young soldiers gone, one who was raised amongst us, and whose many social and manly qualities gained him hosts of friends, and whose death is regretted by the whole community.

George W. Boggs was a member of "Knapp's Battery," of Pittsburgh, so celebrated for its efficiency and execution at the various battles in which it bore a prominent part. George was one of its most efficient members, and has left behind him a record to which few men of his age have attained. He served a term of enlistment in the Regular Army under Capt. (now General) Sturgis on the frontiers against the bands of savages, that have been hostile to the United States for a number of years. In a battle with the Cayennes [Cheyenne?] our young hero was seriously wounded. After serving out his time of enlistment, he returned to his mountain home, to enjoy the society of his relatives who reside in this County.

When Rebellion confronted the Government and threatened to destroy the Union, George was among the first to volunteer to uphold the Old Flag under which he had fought and bled in other years. In Bank's retreat from Shenandoah Valley, he was taken prisoner, and from close confinement and cruel treatment from the rebels at Belle Island, he contracted disease, which broke down his hitherto iron constitution.

He was exchanged and rejoined the battery, and at the battle of Gettysburg was seriously wounded. Over exertion and a painful wound brought back his old disease which resulted in the death of this young and noble patriot, whose life for the last seven years had been spent in the service of his Country. His funeral took place on Wednesday, Sept. 30th, last, and was largely attended by his friends of Altoona and Hollidaysburg and a company of returned volunteers under command of Colonel McKage. - G. W. L.

DEMOCRATIC MEETING. - The Democratic meeting, on Saturday evening last, was very creditable, in point of numbers, and like all such collections, previous to election, was "very enthusiastic." The Hollidaysburg train, consisting of some six or seven cars, was well filled, and quite a number came from points down the road. The Altoona Brass Band was engaged for the occasion. At about half-past seven o'clock the meeting opened at the crossing of Virginia and Julia street. After the election of officers, (we have not been furnished with a list) Chas. J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, was introduced to the audience. His theme was the seizure of the Railroads and Telegraphs by the President, in case of necessity, the enormous taxes, the conscription, &c. Speeches were also made by W. A. Wallace, Esq., of Clearfield, R. S. Johnson and Philip S. Noon, Esqrs., of Ebensburg. With the exceptions of some rowdyism on a part of a portion of the Hollidaysburg crowd, everything passed off' in the most orderly manner.

ACCIDENT AT MIFFLIN. - The Fast Train East, on Thursday morning last, ran into the rear end of a freight train, in consequence of the breaking of a lever which controlled the breaks of the passenger train. Jesse M. Fizzle, of Harrisburg, Fireman of the passenger engine was killed, and Philip Lowe, Engineer, was badly injured, having one foot mashed and being held on the engine in close proximity to escaping steam. The Baggage Master was somewhat bruised by trunks which fell on him. No passengers were injured.

Altoona Tribune, Altoona, Pa., Wednesday, October 7, 1863, page 3