The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1866-02-14
THE SOUTH.

We have received advanced sheets of ''The
South; its Battle Fields, its People and its
Prospects" by j. T. Trowbridge. Mr.. I. is
well known as the author of "Neighbor Jack
wood "Cudjo's Cave" and is regular
contributor TO the Atlantic Monthly. He
started last summer on a tour through the
South. His objects were, to see and describe
all the noted battle fields; TO learn just how
the war had left the South, and TO depict it
as it was TO picture the havoc of the war
generally in the burned and battered cities
and desolated fields; to inquire into the con-
labor, their prospects and the feelings of the
whites towards them and to make general
observations on the reconstruction problem
The advance pages before us form an install
servations. They are very readable. A close
observer, a faithful rather than graphic
sketcher, writing in an easy, graceful, con
versational style, which sometimes almost de-
generates into tritepess, in his minute details
of conversations with the people he met, he
yet maintains our interest throughout his
story, and his work is well done as accu-
rately portraying people and things as they
are in the South.
The work will be complete In one volume
of about GOO pages, is profusely and hand
somely illustrated published in excellent
style. by L. Stebbins, Hartford, Connecticut,
and will be sold by agents only and at So. 50
per copy.
We extract the closing part of his sketch
Of the field of Spottsylvania-the scene OF
the last days fight of the great struggle il
the Wilderness:
i Riding west from the Court House, anc
striking across the fields on the right, W,
passed McCoofs house, In pleasant shad,
place, and reached the scene where the egh
days fighting eliminated. OF the woods
thinned and despoiled by the storm of iror
and lead, only a ghostly grove of dead trnnk
and dreary dry limbs remained. Keeping
around the western edge OF these, we cam,
to strange medley of intrenchments, which
ii would have required an engineer to unrave
and understand. Here Grants works hat
been pushed up against Lees, swallowin,
them as one wave swallows another. No
|
close and desperate fighting For eight day
Grant had been laundering at the gates o
of the Confederacyi slowly, with fearful loss
he had been pressing back the enemy ant
breaking through the DISTINCTIONS; until her
at last he concentrated all his strength. Eacl
army fought as if the gods had decreed tina
3 the issue of the war depended upon tha
struggle. And so indeed they had; the wa
to Richmond py this route, so long attempte
in vain, was here opened. The grand resul
proclaimed that the eight days battles wer
| victories; that the enemy, for the first tim
on his own chosen ground, had met wit
ominous defeat. Inconeeivable was th
slaughter. Here two red rivers met an
spilled themselves into the ground. Swii
8 currents from the great West, tributaries fror
, the Atlantic States and the Lake States
priceless rills, precious drops, from almo,
every community and family in the Union
r swelled the northern stream which burst i,
living banks and pershed here. Every state
every community, every family mourned.
But behind this curtain Of woe was tn
chiselled awful form, the terrible front an
sublime eyes, of the statue of Fate, the n,
|, hons unalterable Will. Contemplating tha
!. we were silenced, if not consoled. Ever
breast--&hat of the father going to search ft
the dead body Of his son, that of the moth<
reading the brief despatch that pierced +,
as the bullet pierced her dear boy, that
r the pale wife Fastening 70 the cot-side Of b
dying husband, nay, the bleeding breasts
the wounded and dying, while yet they felt
Il tnrob OF hfe-thrilled responsive TO Grant
- simple, Egpifcant aanouncennent-
4 -. propose M e sAhs i -. O tAis line, if
tAxes al summer ssg .#.sAg@
j took ~ summer, indeed, end al xipt