July 8, 1863,
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 9pm.

A light rain blankets the town, and many of the soldiers have covered their tents and their persons with their gum blankets.  A pack of boisterous children marches past the porch of my boarding house, singing a nonsensical song about a hare running for President.  A schoolmarm tries in vain to silence them, scurrying them along the street to a red clapboard building.  A farmer in a straw hat passes by with four small children; the youngest, perhaps no more than two or three, slows his pace to stare at me as I write; his father calls to him, “Jacob!” and the youngster soon scurries along behind his siblings.  The leaves rustle with a passing breeze, their gentle rattle punctuated by occasional heavy raindrops pelting the awning under which I sit.

Life goes on in this bustling town, with little signs of war disturbing its domestic tranquility other than scattered groups of soldiers marching toward the rail station, here and there a white canvas tent, and wagons of supplies winding their way down the main thoroughfare towards the camps.  I am told that some of the rail cars passing through Harrisburg carry wounded from the three days at Gettysburg, on their way to the large army hospital at Philadelphia.  Here and there, a widow in black regalia passes me on the street, a poignant reminder of the grim finger of War and its touch on the local hearth.

I may be summoned to New-York in the next few days – there is word that Campbell may need my skills as a printer in the Franklin Square offices.  I look forward to the possibility of a respite from my martial wanderings, and a sojourn under Broadway in Pfaff’s Cave.

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