Traveling witness to the conflict

In 1888, just four years before his death, William Firth Cowden of Cumberland, Md., published a book titled simply “Cowden’s Poems.” Cowden recorded events witnessed mostly while traveling on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (C&O) during the Civil War. In the Introduction, he writes:”It fell to my lot, to pass through Harper’s Ferry, on the memorable night of October 16th, 1859, while the force led by John Brown was in the act of raiding the town.” He was only 22 years old at the time.

“Being on the Maryland side of the river, our boat passed on down the canal unmolested; when nearing Point of Rocks, I saw a special Train, bearing Genl. Robert E. Lee, and a large number of United States Marines, to the scene of the conflict, which was soon ended by the capture of John Brown of Osawatomie.”

Point of Rocks is a small community along the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad and C&O Canal just east of Harpers Ferry that hasn’t changed much since the War Between the States. During the war, this area served as one of the Union’s largest supply depots. When Lee took Brown prisoner at Harpers Ferry in 1859, he held the rank of colonel in the United States Army. Lee would not become a general until he joined the Confederacy.

C&O Canal

Cowden was born in New Brunswick, Canada, on Feb. 25, 1837, the eldest son of John and Mary Ann Firth Cowden. He could trace his roots back to Scotland, where in 1815 his ancestors sailed for North America on a ship called the Alexander. In the spring of 1844, the Cowdens settled in Johnstown, Pa., residing there until 1850, when the family moved to Cumberland, Md., on the Potomac River.

Cowden attained financial prosperity by selling and moving merchandise on the C&O Canal from his home in Cumberland to Washington. It was during one of these business dealings that he had his brush with John Brown.

The C&O Canal operated between 1836 and 1924, paralleling the Potomac River from Cumberland to Washington. The total length of what some called the “Grand Old Ditch” was 184.5 miles. The primary purpose of the narrow waterway was to haul coal, lumber and grain by a system of boats or barges pulled by mules walking on a towpath along the side.

Early in December 1861, a Confederate officer later to be known as Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson tried demolishing Dam No. 5 on the Potomac River, which furnished water to the canal. Jackson’s plan was to prevent coal mined in Western Maryland from reaching the Union’s capital. This attempt to cut off an important source of Washington’s fuel was one of few objectives the Southern legend failed to accomplish.

Confederate flag

On a business trip in May 1861, Cowden had another brush with history. “As if fate had predetermined my path, I happened to be in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, the day the first Confederate flag was hoisted, waving its folds over the Jackson House. This was the same banner that Col. Elmer Ellsworth lost his life in taking down May 1861.”

In all probability, Cowden had journeyed on the C&O Canal to the Alexandria Canal a few days before Col. Ellsworth was killed. On the morning of May 24, 1861, Ellsworth and a regiment of Zouaves were dispatched to Alexandria to maintain peace.

Ellsworth, a close friend of President Abraham Lincoln, attempted to remove a Rebel flag from the Marshall House, when James W. Jackson, a Southern sympathizer and owner of the hotel, killed the 23-year-old colonel with a shotgun. That explains why Cowden referred to the hotel and tavern as the “Jackson House.”

On the return from Alexandria, Cowden stopped at Harpers Ferry, finding it in “possession of Virginia militia.” At this time, only passengers and the U.S. Mail on the B&O Railroad were allowed through the small town. Finally, after three days, he was permitted to continue home.

There he met Gen. Lewis Wallace, who “was then the Commander of the 11th Indiana regiment, then stationed at Cumberland, who needed transportation for his commissary and camp goods.”

Wallace was the same man who on July 9, 1864, led Union forces against Gen. Jubal Early’s seasoned Confederates along Monocacy Creek, often referred to as “The Battle That Saved Washington.”

Wallace is probably best known for writing “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,” one of the most popular novels of the 19th century. And who could forget the movie with Charlton Heston and the great Roman chariot race that won him the 1960 Academy Award for best actor?

Scene of desolation

Around July 1, 1861, an agreement was reached to move Wallace’s cargo — but by land rather than by canal. Cowden recalled loading numerous wagons with “pork, beans and hardtack.”

“Leaving Cumberland by way of the National Pike, we passed through Hancock and arrived at Clear Spring the third evening where it was raining very hard.”

The 11th Indiana accompanied Cowden’s supply train from Clear Spring to Williamsport and then across the Potomac River. Upon reaching Martinsburg in what is today West Virginia, Cowden recounted the extensive damage done to the B&O Railroad shops and yard.

The railroad “was a scene of desolation; fifty-six locomotives were backed in line on the tracks, and covered with wood and oil, and then fired, enveloping all in destruction.”

What Cowden didn’t know at the time, this “scene of desolation” was the work of Jackson and his men two weeks earlier. The Confederates not only set fire to 56 locomotives, they put the torch to 300 coal cars, as well as cross-ties and other railway equipment.

Jackson also gave instructions to dismantle 13 engines down to the frame and wheels. He then used 40-horse teams to pull them 38 miles up the Martinsburg-Winchester Turnpike to Strasburg. Here they were reassembled, and eventually some reached Richmond. Oddly enough, the raid on the B&O Railroad at Martinsburg - May 24, 1861 - occurred on the same day Ellsworth was killed at Alexandria.

Cowden’s provisions were eventually delivered to a Federal division camped in the vicinity of Charlestown, after which, “All the hired teams were paid off and ordered home.”

Two battles

It is not known if Cowden ever met or saw Jackson, but in the fall of 1862 he had another close encounter with Old Jack’s soldiers.

“I was again at Harper’s Ferry, September 15th, 1862, and left there one hour previous to the surrender of Genl. Miles to the Confederates, only to be placed in a position near by, while the battle of Antietam was fought.”

The action described occurred just two days before the Battle of Antietam as Jackson’s seasoned veterans seized the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. During the shelling of the Federal garrison, the “Genl. Miles” (actually Col. Dixon S. Miles) mentioned was killed. Cowden said he escaped not long before Rebel cannon riddled the town.

The year 1863 proved mostly uneventful for the Cumberland businessman, except for Lee’s invasion of the North.

“The next year I was engaged in transporting commissary stores to the south-west wing of the army during the battle of Gettysburg, July 2nd, 1863.” It is unlikely that the young merchant saw any of the fighting at Gettysburg, being with the “south-west wing of the army.”

This location probably was miles south of the battlefield, perhaps even near the Mason-Dixon Line. It is possible, however, he could have heard if not felt the earth vibrating from the tremendous cannonade prior to Pickett’s Charge on the third day at Gettysburg.

Death of Lincoln

Western Maryland received a welcome break in hostilities in 1864 as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s army fought in eastern Virginia. But early the following year, exciting times again found Cowden’s homeland: “I was in the City of Cumberland the night Genl. McNeil’s cavalry captured Genls. Crook and Kelly.”

Early on the frosty morning of Feb. 21, 1865, Lt. (not general) Jesse C. McNeil’s 65 partisan rangers forded the Potomac River, surprised and captured Union Gens. George Crook and Benjamin Kelly in the heart of Cumberland. The bold exploit was performed under the noses of close to 7,000 Federal troops camped in and around the city.

The Northern generals were escorted to Richmond but were soon released during a prisoner-of-war exchange. In his “Reminiscences of the Civil War,” Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon cited the capture of the two Union generals as “one of the most thrilling incidents of the entire war.”

On the night of April 14, 1865, Cowden found himself on business at the U.S. Capitol when word came that President Lincoln had been shot.

“I was in the City of Washington on the night of the assassination of President Lincoln, and received a pass the second day after, permitting me to leave the city. I was again in Washington about one week afterward, while the President’s remains lay in state in the White House, where I viewed the medley host that wended their way into its portals, to take a last look on their Chief Magistrate; from which scene I formed the poem, called the Dirge of Lincoln.”

A different conflict

Cowden finished the introduction to the book of poems with an episode relating to another war.

“Even while I write, I have sharpened my pencil with a razor presented to me, at the age of fifteen, by a native of La Belle, France, who was at the time following the occupation of vine-dressing and landscape gardening near the City of Pittsburg, Penna.; and while in conversation, his thoughts ran back to his earlier years, then he told me, that he had been a soldier in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, and was on the field of Waterloo the day of the defeat of the Hero of a Hundred Battles.”

Cowden remembered the old French soldier dreaming of the past. “He became so excited that leaping to his feet, he shouted three times ’Vive la Napoleon! Vive la Napoleon! Vive la Napoleon!’ ”

The poet concluded with fond words of that early visit to Pennsylvania. “There and then, on the banks of the Allegheny River, I heard the same voice that had articulated ’Vive la Napoleon,’ on the field of Waterloo re-echo it again on the continent of America. Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Book of poetry

Less than one year after the Civil War ended — March 1, 1866 — Cowden married Isabella Young of Pennsylvania. Pastor A.J. Weddell of Cumberland performed the ceremony in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. On Nov. 29, 1866, Isabella gave birth to John Alex Cowden and seven years later — Jan. 14, 1872 — William Davison Cowden was born.

An 1880 census lists William F. Cowden as a “retired merchant” living on Paca Street with his family in Cumberland, Md. Sometime after 1880 the Cowdens moved to Washington County, Md., along the National Pike where it crossed a five-arch stone bridge at Conococheague Creek. Perhaps Cowden remembered this lovely area called Wilson’s District from hauling freight on the National Pike during the war years.

It is not known exactly when he wrote his poems, but it appears most were composed after he retired. Two hundred ninety-one poems are found in the old book published by William K. Boyle & Son of Baltimore in 1888 - four years before the poet’s death on Jan. 31, 1892, at age 55. Nobody know how many copies were published, but in the early 1900s each member of the Cowden family received one.

Memories of war

Titles of the poems seem to come from any subject that entered the writer’s mind such as “The River of Swans,” “The May Queen,” Land of My Birth,” etc. He would refer to animals in “Beaver River,” “To the Mocking Bird,” “The Little Bird on the Ship” and “The Lark to the Mountain Boy.”

But it is clear that most of all he liked to write about his everyday experiences while delivering commissary stores during the Civil War. Titles pertaining to some of these historical places and people include “Harper’s Ferry,” “Battle of Ball’s Bluff,” “Capture of Genls. Crook and Kelly,” “The Battle of Antietam” and “Dirge of Lincoln.”

After her husband’s death, Isabella moved in with her son William, who also lived in Wilson’s District. Isabella Cowden died on July 14, 1923, at age 82 and was laid to rest next to her husband in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Cemetery just east of Clear Spring along the National Pike — a route the Canadian-born, merchant-turned-poet traveled often during the War Between the States.

• Richard E. Clem, a frequent contributor, is grateful to Karen Wright Lowery of Hagerstown, Md., for sharing her personal copy of “Cowden’s Poems,” as well as information about the Cowden family. She is the great-great-granddaughter of William Firth Cowden.