When the Massachusetts men entered the Capitol building, Isaac Bennett, the Senate doorkeeper said they: "rushed to the Senate Chamber, the galleries, committee rooms, marble room, wherever they could find accommodations."
He continued: "Everything that was possible was done to make them comfortable as the circumstances permitted. But it almost broke my heart to see the soldiers bring armfuls of bacon and hams and throw them down on the floor of the marble room. Almost with tears in my eyes, I begged them not to grease up the walls and the furniture."
Pennsylvania volunteers stayed in the House Chamber, and the Massachusetts group in the Senate Chamber.
As 4,000 troops occupied the building, the raucous scene was a far cry from the civility of lawmaking. Soldiers defecated in the hallways, rigged ropes to swing from the unfinished dome and unwittingly spread lice among each other.
The odor of cooking and pipe smoke permeated the air and soot from baking bread in the basement damaged books in the Library of Congress.
"The smell is awful," wrote the architect of the Capitol, Thomas U. Walter in a letter to his wife. "The building is like one grand water closet -- every hole and corner defiled."
--Old Secesh
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