The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-11-22

nor ashamed to WORK.
After an early breakfast we started
on a tour of the battle-ground, on
which the darkest chapters of our
national history were written in blood,
and doubly cursed with the damniug
faint of treason-not alone the bold,
defiant treason that faced US in the
rebel ranks-but the darker, deeper,
deadller guilt and shame of treason
under the old flag, and among those
who were trusted by long suffering
people as the chiefest among its de-
tenders.
The events of those fateful days ia
July, 1861, and August, 1862, are two
fresh in the public mind. They were
burned into the hearts of the Ameri-
can people too deeply, to require any
letter writer of this generation to re-
narse them. The world knows the
near approach to victory, the sudden
turning Of the scales, the horrid event
and appalling disasters of July 21st,
1861, which first awoke the North
from the delusive dream Of speedy
peace to the terrible realities and
changing fortunes of long and san
culinary war. And all the world has
heard the more disgraceful story of
thousands of noble lives thrown
away, thousands of manly forms
MANNED and crippled, thousands of
wives widowed, children orphaned,
homes bereft of loved ones, millions
Of treasure wasted and hosts of brave
men driven in shameful retreat by
half their number of rebels that the
rising fame of a rival general might
be destroyed. that the star of John
Pope might not ascend to the zenith
from which the ignuS tatuds of Geo.
B. Mcclellan had sunk into the
swamps along the Chickahominy.
AS | rode with my rebel friend, on
that calm Indian Summer day, along
the field and woods where our lines
and their lines had been posted, the
one to repel the other. to make the
final charge on the last of those three
black letter days that closed Pope's
Virginia campaign and placed the
GREAT INCUBUS once more on the
necks of the army and the people,
my thoughts were busy with the pic
lures which memory presented. [
forgot our traitor generals, our shame
ful fight; forgot even the sad night
after the battle, when, wounded,
sick, disheartened, but dreading a
rebel prison more than death, |
crawled through the gloomy woods,
In the cold, drizzling rain, and taking
advantage of darkness and the vel
come noise of braying mules, stole
out between the rebel pickets and
into the Union lines to join my sad |
remnant of a company at morning
roll-call in'CentreVille. All else was
forgotten, in memory of the dead
whose blood eonsecrated b, the soil |
where | stood; not alone the dead |
whose names have swelled the trump
of fame and will live in history, hut |
the humble, nameless heroes who /
could afford to die for their country |
without the hope of fame and glory to
sweeten the bitter cup of death. Here |
fell the friends of my boyhoOd and |
associates of maturer years; here fell |
and died, his last earthly gaze fast |
ened on the dear old flag. PRIVATE
JOHN KEITH, the purest patriot, the |
most dhESfxdas gentleman tAe fnest1
scholar, the noblest Roman of them
ALL" 3 i
Here I heard the Horrible Z" thud"
of the Minnie as it crashed through |
HASTINGS brain, and there saw the |
form of WEBSTER as it reeled in the |
saddle and fell into the arms of death. |
Every foot Of the landscape is elo-
quent with the mournful story, doubly |
mournful in that they who fell here
fell in vain.
Memory calls the roll Of the old
. Fourth Battalion, . aud to a hun
dred names comes back the echo,
- Killed at the Second Bull Run, p
unwelcOme recollec-
ton will return-murdered by trea-
son in hearts that beat uuder the
stars of Major Generals in the army
of the Union.
But this letter is already too long
for the patience of the most indul-
gent reader, and [ must drop the cur
tain on the scene of the two horse
men," standing where McDowell's
left rested, under front and flank fire;
while he looked on, smoking his
cigar, and inwardly eursing the fate
that always made him the victim Of
others stupidity or malice.
In my next / will try to bring the
reader through Smokers Gap, across
the Shenandoah to the quiet, old fogy
town of Winchester. aElH p.