"The object of the expedition having been attained, the brigade was broken up, and the Mass. 17th embarked at Cherrystone on the 1st and 2d of Dec., and sailed on the 4th for Baltimore, where they arrived the same evening, and went into their old quarters. On the 18th they commenced building barracks [on Stewart's Place] for winter quarters and moved into them on the 5th of January." (These barracks are still standing, and used as a general hospital.) In February Co.'s F and H relieved the 6th Michigan at McKim's Place, and K and G the 4th Wisconsin at Patterson's Park, those regt's being destined to form part of Gen. Butler's force then about to sail for New Orleans. On the 14th of March four other Co.'s of the 17th were ordered to Fort Marshall, East Baltimore, to assist in defending that fortification from an attack by rebel sympathizers, who, emboldened by the destructive raid of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, meditated a rising in Baltimore, if not throughout the State. When the 17th arrived in Baltimore they found the people of that city nearly all 'secesh' in sentiment, and seeming only constrained from rising by the presence in, and passage through, the city, of large numbers of troops. It will then be readily inferred that the men of this regiment had no very enviable task to perform in endeavoring to keep the peace and making these disaffected people see the evil of their ways. In doing this, however, they were not fools enough to use moral suasion alone--that would be casting pearls before swine--No; they used arguments that were far more convincing, such as street drills, practicing at street firing, &c., all of which turned the hate of the 'secesh' citizens into fear--and, finally, their fear became a feeling of respect. What if the men were insulted every time they walked the streets--the women (who were the most outspoken) at length became weary of abusing them, and the men who attempted to insult them never tried that game a second time; for they found in the men of this regiment a spirit that would brook no abuse--an indomitable, dare-devil disposition that met them half way with a bowie knife as long and as keen as their own, and a pistol as deadly. Thus they fought their way to respect, and this latter feeling ripened into affection, which is shown by the fact that when the regiment was about to sail for North Carolina, the ladies of Baltimore presented it with a magnificent silk flag, upon which was painted a fine portrait of Washington.