Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1860-07-06
WATERING PLACE CORRESPONDENCE,
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS.
Greenbrier CO., Va, June %. 1854


Editor Star: Do not for a moment suppose
that your correspondent could pass through
Charlottesville without observing with inter
est Virginia's renowned University, or un-
moved by stirring and powerful emotions and
thoughts Of its illustrious founder and bene-
factor, whose honored dust reposes within the
cerements of that consecrated tomb i'm the
grounds Of bis own loved Monticello? No,
Nsrer! My mind was busy all along over
the millions OF broad acres Of the Old Domin-
ion, from the Potomac to the Blue Ridge
with the long and crowded array Of reminis-
cences and incidents connected with the Colo
nial and Revolutionary annals of the noble
old Commonwealth. And as the vast-yet
still to be lengthened-scroll of her distin-
guished archives, emblazoned with heroic
deeds, was unrolled before me, and then went
up In review from out the silent past that long
procession OF stirring events and brilliant
achievements, of acts, deeds, and sacrifices in
the cause of Iatriotism and liberty-the mind
p0ndered reverently upon the splendid record
of initiatory steps towards separation from the
motherland, taken and urged by the patriotic
colony in the House of Burgesses, and Hall of
Independence. In the Provincial Assembly,
her chivalric sons reused to determined action
by the impetuous and fiery exordiums and
harangues of Patrick Henry; and upon the
floor OF the Continental Congress, her young
and rising statesman, chairman of the great
committee, supported in his solemn proclama-
tion Of now world accepted truths, by the
chsste and finished rhetoric, and the polished
silvery eloquence of Richard Henry Lee And
methought that if my own New Hampshire
may boast her Webster, Mason, Woodbury.
Atherton, CasS. and Pierce, Virginia too can
point to her precious jewels-to George Wash
Ington, Thomas jefferson, Henry. Lee, Pendie-
ton, Wythe, Peytsn, Randolph, Madison, Mon
roe, William Writ and Henry Clay.
And my thoughts eonjured up the handsome
young surveyor, with quadrant and memoran-
DUN in hand, he determined the s'metes and
bounds" OF, perhaps, some of the same acres
aud sections over which, in unconscious scorn
of those hallOwed thoughts, and with the speed
of the wind, the iron horse-then undreamed
even in most wandering and prophetic visions
was hurrying me swiftly forward. And rs the
fitting mlle-stones passed uncounted to the
rear, the correct and truthful youth of nine
teen, advanced a few years in life, is again
seen-the God dpreserved commander of the
decimated squsdrons on the blood baptised
field of MonOngahela. Then, the mature and
ripened General-in-Chi appears, as riding
along in our classic Cambridge beneath those
ancient elms, coeval with the Pilgrims land
ing, he was accosted in the gloom Of thicken-
ing twilight by General from the right bank
of the Potomac" the response of Dan Morgan
to the Chiefs eager challenge, "What com
pany is that" as at the end of his long foot
march from home the veteran rifle ranger
drew proudly into line his command of picked
men from old Fredericksburg, in salute to his
surprised and delighted commander
Once more looked, and saw the trembling
scales Of liberty 60 up and down amid the
shock and carnsge Of battle on Prineeton's
smoking plain, as the waves of defeat surged
against his heated and exhausted battalion's,
and as reckless of his own life, and reused
into towering, terrific wrath at culpable ne
glect and cowardice, and possible treachery,
he spurs his frantic charger up almost to the
very mouths of Britain's advancing cannon
And yet, once again, my teeming thoughts
revert to the old Legislative Hall at Annap-
oils, where that pure, unselfsh, perfect man,
patriot, warrior, hero, statesman, resigns his
command, and tenders back his commission to
the Confederated Congress, whence he re-
ceived it, and this too, when supreme power
and rule seemed profered and urged upon
him by the millions of his grateful and con-
fding countrymen. But he gives up his trust,
and in recent language Of Lord Brougham
concerning the great man, "that their rights
may be conserved, and that his example might
never be appealed to by vulgar tyrants''
TELLIAMED.