[12] Since the Baltimore riot two months earlier when the 6th Massachusetts was attacked by a large crowd of civilian Confederate sympathizers, new Union regiments headed southward generally avoided passing through that city.

Either side of Bull Run was peculiarly well adapted to defensive warfare, with a gentle slope downs to the water, which had carved a deep chasm thus forming a barrier to cavalry and artillery.

The men of the regiment noted that the road to the ford ran apparently through a farm or plantation, with a house, barn, outbuildings, and orchard on the left, and a large wheat-field on the right.

[23] The brigade's skirmishers advanced half-way down the hill to make observations and, across Bull Run, they saw rebel infantry in numerous cleared spots and around certain buildings, interspersed here and there by cavalry, but no artillery.

The Northern public was shocked at the unexpected defeat of their army when an easy victory had been widely anticipated, and both sides quickly came to realize that the war would be longer and more brutal than they had imagined.

As well as the forts, designed to house soldiers and store artillery and other supplies, the system included prepared but unarmed batteries for field guns and seven blockhouses that could be manned on an ad hoc basis.

At Fort Albany, the 1st Massachusett's numbers had been somewhat diminished by discharges for disability and other causes, but those remaining were realizing the struggle would be harder and longer than first expected and still maintained good morale.

At 8:00 a.m. in a drenching rain, the regiment and its twenty-five wagons left the fort, recrossed the Potomac over Long Bridge, marched through Washington, and stopped on a knoll just short of Bladensburg, MD in Prince George's County (ten miles in all).

The 1st Massachusetts men were not allowed to go to other camps, nor visit Bladensburg, Washington, or the neighborhood, without the regimental commander's written permission, and at night, travel also required challenges and passwords.

The journey began shortly, and continued, without opposition, through a semi-hostile country south through Prince George's county until 6:30 p.m.,[54] when the soldiers bivouacked in an oak-grove, not far from Marlborough situated on a branch of the Patuxent River, which runs into Chesapeake Bay.

These people provided critical intelligence on roads, the names and character of residents in the county, and the recruiting efforts prior to the regiment's arrival to raise a company each of cavalry and infantry from the neighborhood.

This village, the Calvert County seat, had been in open revolt and was the headquarters of the locally recruited rebel cavalry and infantry, flying the Confederate flag above the Court House.

[64] The regiment's approach had caused the principal secessionist inhabitants to flee, but returned in course of a day or two, "astonished and delighted to find that their habitations had not been destroyed nor their friends molested," as the Confederate propaganda predicted.

Having learned the situation was getting troublesome, on Saturday, the regiment pushed hard over muddy roads carrying full kit twenty-three miles to Posey's Plantation, directly opposite Quantico Creek, by 8:00 p.m.[69] The U.S. forces in the vicinity numbered over 10,000 men in ten different camps, scattered all along the Potomac's north bank.

[74] Upon their return, Lt. Col. Wells ordered a detail to secure the ship from further attention, but as they got in their boats, the rebels tried to burn an unmanned lumber schooner anchored about half a mile from the north bank shore.

[note 14] The opposite shore for miles up and down the Potomac, was in an uproar as fires were set, guns spiked, gunpowder blown up resulting in dense smoke arose from all the camps as they were burned and deserted.

While the fortifications showed professional design and construction, the large quantity of regimental papers and private letters indicated "both a lax state of discipline among the troops, and gross ignorance on the part of the officers.

After their earlier experiences in lower Maryland, the suspicious men took spades and shovels to the task and speedily exhumed not human remains but numbers of nice new tents, packages of clothing, and mess-chests.

[113] At Ship Point, which the rebels had fortified, large numbers of troops disembarked from steamers, quartermasters' and commissaries' stores piled up, ordnance amassed, and the AoP's regiments lay in every direction awaiting orders.

[118] The Sunday after the 1st Massachusetts' arrival, two-thirds of the army were within cannon shot of the rebels (commanded by Maj. Gen. "Prince" John Magruder) screened by intervening woods, and noise discipline imposed silencing the regiment's band and drum-calls, and musketry restricted to actual frontline duty.

[122] Despite this excitement, after a week or so, exhaustion led men, finished witj their assignments, to drop back a few paces out of sight behind the line, and sleep through the cacophony of rebel artillery.

[125] McClellan decided to destroy it, and at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, April 26, companies A, H, and I along with two from the 11th Massachusetts, were led to a point in the woods nearest this lunette, 400 yards across an open cornfield under coverage of rebel guns.

Picket duty also became more arduous with the men roused at midnight, supplied with a days' rations, and marched in the dark to posts within artillery and musketry range of rebel lines with scant cover.

[133] As news spread, the AoP's mood changed, and as men, released from the perils of siege warfare, felt a triumphant exhilaration of joy, and were ready to follow McClellan anywhere, so thoroughly had he won their confidence by taking Yorktown without a battle.

[134] As the AoP's cavalry pursued, briefly overtaking the rebel rearguard until they entered the Williamsburg entrenchments,[134] the 1st was busy issuing rations, sending the sick to the hospital ships at Cheeseman's Landing, striking tents, and preparing for march.

[134] The roads were strewn with military debris and the regiment's men noted the overpowering stench from dead horses, stagnant pools of water, or garbage left to rot in the sun.

Blackened tree stumps, abandoned caissons, broken-down army wagons, and half-ruined barn and huts completed a scene of unmitigated desolation, above which in the distance Lowe's balloon, "The Intrepid," watched over the distant roads the retreating foe had gone.

As the regiment passed through Yorktown, the 1st found, "with an infernal ingenuity,"[135] the Confederates had thickly strewn booby traps along the route, under coats, in pitchers, in carpet-bags, in flour barrels, and planting them near springs, tents, magazines, and storehouses, killing and wounding a few unwary AoP members before nightfall.

In this ebbing and flowing, the regiment noted the rebels, in repeated instances, gave the AoP's thirsty wounded water from their own canteens, and moved some to safer positions.

Around June 12, 1861 the regiment went to the Watertown Arsenal where they received Springfield Model 1855 rifled musket with which they equipped all companies (some of which were the 1858 modification with simpler rear sight, a patch box on the side of the buttstock, and an iron nosecap).