The US Capitol Takes a Beating...By Union Troops-- Part 2

The Capitol Building had become sort of a half-way house for troops arriving in DC.

As one regiment would get its orders and move out, another would move in.

US Capitol Doorkeeper Isaac Bassett was extremely angered when he found the regiment of New York City's Fire Zouaves (recruited from the fire department) using their bayonets to destroy a desk in the Senate chamber that they believed to have been used by Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.

They further rigged ropes from the cornices of the unfinished dome and passed time swinging back and forth over the Rotunda.

Troops quartered in both chambers spent time conducting mock debates and shout obscenities at each other from the galleries. Smoke from bakeries in the building got into the Library of Congress, located in the Capitol's west front and caused soot in the stacks.

Boys Will Be Boys. --Old B-Runner