When Patterson's men crossed into Maryland on their way home--their three month's term of service having expired--quiet again, and for a comparatively long time, reigned at Harper's Ferry. At Sandy Hook, however, there was a lively time during the month of August and a part of September. General Nathaniel Banks, of Massachusetts, at one time speaker of the House of Representatives, was sent with a large army to occupy that village and Pleasant Valley, and, for six or seven weeks, those places enjoyed the felicity that had fallen to the lot of Harper's Ferry during the spring and early summer. General Banks earned for himself the reputation of being a thorough gentleman and, although his after career in the war was not signalized by much success, no failure on his part has been sufficient to erase the respect which he earned from people of all shades of political opinion in that region. His army occupied the low grounds between the Blue Ridge and the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, as, also, Pleasant Valley, while the General's headquarters were at the house of Mr. Jacob Miller, near Sandy Hook. The latter place, though a mere hamlet, at once acquired a national importance, but, for some reason, Harper's Ferry was entirely ignored for the time. Indeed it appeared to be an axiom with the officers of both armies that the latter place could not be defended successfully against any considerable force. The first battle of Bull Run or Manassas had been fought July 21st--the day on which General Patterson's army retreated from Charlestown to Harper's Ferry, instead of being engaged with General Joe Johnston's forces, who were that day aiding Beauregard at Manassas, having stolen away from Patterson. General Banks as well as other commanders of the union army were being re-organized and prepared for future operations, and Sandy Hook for some reason, was assigned as the temporary position of that General. Early in the Fall he moved to Darnestown, twenty miles farther down the river and after a short stay there he moved to Frederick City, where he spent the winter. After the departure of the main army for Darnestown the 13th regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers was left at Sandy Hook as a corps of observation and a guard for the ford at Harper's Ferry. These men were uncommonly zealous in shooting at rebels as long as they--the 13th--were on the Maryland side of the river with the broad Potomac between them and the enemy, or rather between them and Virginia for, now, it rarely happened that a Confederate soldier appeared anywhere within gun shot of them. Crouching under the buttresses of the ruined bridge on the Maryland side of the river in the now dry bed of the canal, or among the thickets and rocks of the Maryland Heights, the gallant 13th kept up a constant fire on the few inhabitants of Harper's Ferry, suspecting or affecting to suspect them of being rebels. Everything that moved about the streets they shot at vindictively. The