Leaving Boston on the half-past two o'clock
train, I proceeded to Lynn, and personally notified the commanding
officers of the two companies in that city, and from thence telegraphed
to Captain Bartlett at Newburyport, and Captain Centre of Gloucester,
and then drove to Beverly and summoned the company there; and from
thence hastened to Marblehead, where I personally notified the
commanding officers of the three Marblehead companies. I found Captain
Martin in his slaughter-house, with the carcass of a hog, just killed,
and in readiness for the "scald." On communicating to the captain my
orders, I advised him to immediately cause the bells of the town to be
rung, and to get all the recruits he could. Taking his coat from a peg,
he seemed for a moment to hesitate about leaving his business
unfinished, and then turned to me, and with words of emphatic
indifference in regard to it, put the garment on, with his arms yet
stained with blood and his shirt-sleeves but half rolled down, and with
me left the premises to rally his company.
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