Ellsworth Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Among the red-faced recruits, who struggled through the South with the Northern Army during the Civil War, was a farm boy, Elmer Ellsworth.
Troops were marching into combat, their long, heavy rifles and haversacks bowing them down. More than one muttered disconsolately, “Ouch my achin’ back!”
But they felt better once word trickled down the line that Alexandria was in sight. Rifles grew lighter and the drag of heavy shoes lessened. Marching songs were louder and horseplay increased.
Johnny Reb was resting, however, and had to be smoked out.
Ellsworth reached the Marshall House, Alexandria’s best hotel.
It was a magnificent old Southern structure of aged red brick set with white columns about a porch. A Confederate flag snapped defiance from a pole over the portico.
Ellsworth looked at it, scratching his head. Then he grinned and scrambled up the green vines on one end of the porch. He pulled out his long jackknife, sawed the halyards and caught the flag as it collapsed.
The proprietor, named Marshall, looked out and saw a hated soldier in blue stealing his beloved flag. He rushed out into the street with a gun and fired.
Ellsworth threw up his hands and crashed into dust at Marshall’s feet. The flag was still clutched in his fist.
Union soldiers heard the shot, came rushing around a corner. Marshall raised his weapon, but a volley cut him down. He fell beside Ellsworth and the flag.
Elmer Ellsworth was one of the first to fall in the War of the Rebellion.
Worcester joined the rest of the North in a burst of patriotic grief; named a street in his honor. It first appeared with this name in 1866 and runs from Millbury street west to Quinsigamond avenue.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
