ground had a fine location,
and possessed many advantages in wood and water. A deal of pains and
labor was taken to make this camp comfortable and healthy. Green trees
were set out in front of the company grounds, which beautified and made
them enchanting.

This vicinity of the South is noted for its grand natural scenery,
nowhere to be surpassed. We read of the romantic scenery of the
Oriental world--of the versatility of Italia's summer winds--of the
magic charms of her hills, her rills, and dales; but the realities here
presented are more enchanting than the probabilities of a might be in
other parts of the world. From the heights of Lookout mountain the
country around has the appearance of one vast field of ridges, tending
in their direction from north to south. This mountain is 2,500 feet
above the level of the Tennessee, and from the Point of Rocks, a man in
the valley below appears to be no larger than one's thumb, and a train
of cars gliding along at its base has the appearance of tiny toys.
Chattanooga, a distance of more than five miles, seems to lie directly
at its base. The first range of ridges to the eastward of Lookout range
is known as Missionary Ridge. The next in succession are the Pea Vine,
Pigeon, Taylor's, and Rocky Face.

Missionary Ridge, the scene of Bragg's disaster, breaks off from its
regular course at Rossville, in a curve to the eastward, striking the
river some five miles above Chattanooga, thus forming on the south and
south-east a perfect wall of natural defenses, upon which, for two
months, lay the besieging forces of the Confederate army. To complete
the semicircle of walls around Chattanooga on the south side of the
river, Lookout mountain stands in its huge dimensions, a key to the
South-west.

In the Chickamauga valley, on the south-east side of Missionary Ridge,
from McAfee's church to Lee and Gordon's Mills, is the site of the
Chickamauga battle-field.

That place, even when we went there to camp, more than three months
after the battle, presented a repulsive sight. The enactment of that
terrible conflict, when leaden rain fell thick and fast around us, when
the dying were gasping in the last agonies of death, when wounded and
dead men covered the gory field, and the terrible thought of immediate
danger crowded our minds,--produced not half the emotions of human
misery that were experienced nearly four months afterwards when we
viewed the same field. Here and there could be se