The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1864-05-11
Letters from the War.



army has such descriptive powers as are
given to Mr. Taylor His veriest prose
is poetry sparkling with beautiful gems.
His words thrill the heart, and wrap the
soul with intense interest Every line he
indites is full of grand ideas. We clip
the following from his letter to the Chica-
go Journal. from Chattanooga, the Goth
inst. His compliment to the Indiana
soldiers is classically given:
81 wish you could have been with me,
/ this lovely morning, on the hill whose
crest is wrapped around with the red
earth of Fort w Wood as with a turban, for
YOU would have seen line of poetry
written in dark blue across the plain
| from the base of Lookout, one and a half
miles. 1t might have been a hedge with
rich deep foliage. blossoming out at inter.
walls with flowers of strange beauty, only
it was not there last night. You might
think so still, but the ineis growing be-
fore Your eyes. AS you look, an electic
light fiickers to and fro along the blue,
even as the tightening played upon Ro-
man spears in Caesar S time; it is the flash
of FURNISHED arms in the sunshine, As
YOU look, men by companies and regi-
ments are born from the narrow breadth,
I the flowers are those whose roots clasp
loyal hearts; whose fibers feel out the
/ graves of them that sleep. AS you listen,
the swell from band after band rolls in,
and on they come in battle order
Nearer they come, the music intermits.
and you have the heavy tread of men, and
the tinkling of four thousand tin cups,
like a whole Chaldca of ''bell weathers."
| Heber slips back into the book again, po-
etry exhales, and you have the grander
| prose of six regiments of fighting men:
! the 120th, 123d, l24th, l2Sth, 10th, and
l30th Indiana, of General Hovey's Divis-
! ion, the vanguard of twenty thousand on
the way from that State-new men in
! deed, but worthy guardians of the old
family Five pairs of flags gay as the
wings of buttefies, went glittering by,
that never rose and fell on the surges of
battle, and one, poor rag, tatterd by the
! tempest, borne proudly in their midst;
the dyes of the dyer were dim, but the
/ death of the heroes had made its tints
sumblime and my heart warmed to the old
! flag AS it never could to the new, for they
were only silk yet, at SO many dollars a
! yard, but this was CoLoRs, priceless as the
heroes that bore it. The productions of
Indiana have grown grand, and here's to
the State with the new round in her
ladder whence she steps into glory for
everh-ogs, hominy, horses, Hoosiers and
HEROES.
Chattanooga is as busy as a hive in June
Formidable fortifications that will take
the cin, out of shell, and into which shot
will blunder as harmless as beetles by
candle light, are going up all over the
landscape and the hills are all dotted
with laborers A thick spinkling of pep
per here and yonder denote details from
the colored brigade of Colonel Morgan,
and the old laugh with the genuine GUM
ea and gold Coast ring betokens that if
red earth is heavy, red hearts are light.
A reserve magazine special hall for
fine black grain. one hundred and fifty
feet in length by twelve in width and
heights being constructed; the work
upon spacious reservoir is rapily ap-
preaching completion, on Cameron Hill,
whereby water can be conveyed over
town that, all these years, Tapped in its
laziness from pals 'toted on the heads
of Ethiopia from the brink of the Ten
nessee. The harsh, sardonic laugh of
six mills comes up from the river
side; roads are growing firmsby the genius
of McAdam; steamers are breathing
plumes wave above the sweeps of the
bluffs as they go; the hoarse, rough snort
of locomotives never intermits; the rattle
of wagons has no end; the dull blows of
the rock blasters and the daily rehearsals
of artillery put in the punctuation.
All day ammunition trains have been
running to Ringgold, and columns of
troops like the dial shadow in the sunshine
are never out of sight. The rebels on
our right are restless, and now and then,
forgetting themselves, grow something
saucy. Your readers appreciate the i'm
portance OF Ringgold' but possibly not
as well as those who are the beaten end
Of the drum. They understand, too, the
nature of the approaches to Chattanooga
and the North; that the Gaps are gateless
Gazas through the burrows of the heavy
ploughing, as called it the other day,
and that our federal armies are blue coated
doorkeepers in the house of the LORD of
liberty. 1.-The tents Of wickedness being
just on the outside Chattanooga, CIeve-
land and Dalton at the angles of . trian-
gle very nearly equilsteral. Thus. from
Chattanooga but. north of east, twenty
seven miles by the East Tennessee and
Georgia Railroad, is Cleveland. From
Cleveland down, point or two west Of
south, twenty seven miles, by the CIeve-
land Branch is Dalton So much for the
third; going northwest thirty eight miles,
by the Western and Atlantic, you COM
plete the hypothenuse. by way Of Tunnel
Hill, Ringgold and Chicamauga, and find
Chattanooga, the place of beginning. By
a direct line however, the third side does
not exceed thirty two miles Now, re-
membering that through this iron bound
triangle the rugged ribs Of the ridges
range northeasterly. some reader may
gain clearer idea Of this grand piece OF
geometry, with men true blue At two OF
its angles, and huge ganglion Of dirty
gray At the third.