features
blurred by an overlaying of ornamental and commemorative accretions.
A few markers of the simplest, and a plain tablet now and then where
a hero fell or valour was unusually conspicuous, should suffice, for
a field is more impressive that lies for the most part in its original
rudeness and solitude. At Antietam I found little obtrusive. Sherman's
fields on the way to and about Atlanta have not been marred; nor at
Franklin and Nashville are the plains parked and obelisked out
of recognition. At Bull Run I climbed with a veteran of the
signal-service into the top of a high tree, an old war-time station,
on the hill near the Henry House. The precarious platform remained.
From such an eyrie in the same grove, perhaps from this same tree, a
Southern friend of mine, on the battle-day, caught sight more than two
leagues away of the glint of sunlight on cannon and bayonets toward
Sudley Springs, and sent timely notice to Beauregard that a Federal
column was turning his left. Under my eye the landscape was unchanged,
with no smoothings or intrusions to embarrass the imagination in
making the scene real. But it was in the Wilderness that I felt
especially grateful that the wild thickets for the most part had
been let alone. I found at Fredericksburg an old Confederate, one
of Mahone's command, and hiring an excellent roadster, we drove on
a perfect autumn day first to Spottsylvania Court House, then across
country to the Brock road, then home by the Wilderness church and
Chancellorsville. On the area we traversed were fought four of our
most memorable battles, an area now scarcely less tangled and lonely
than when the Federals poured across the Rappahannock into its
thickets by the thousand, and were so memorably met. My veteran knew
the pikes and the by-paths, and we fraternised with the warmth usual
among foemen who at last have become friends. He knew the story well
of every wood-path and cross-roads. Certainly I was glad that the
rugged acres had undergone no "improvement," and that the eye fell
so nearly on what the old-time soldiers saw. It so happened it
was election-day. There were polling-places at the court-houses of
Fredericksburg and Spottsylvania, at Todd's Tavern, and the Chancellor
house, names bearing solemn associations. The neighbourhoods had come
out to vote, and introduced by my comrade, I had some interesting
encounters. It was a good climax, when toward the end, near
the Chancellor House, we met in