Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-10-21
AN EPISODE OF QUIZ CIVIL WAR

VIII. Wallsce Harvey writes in Lippin-
colts Magazine for October as follows:
have spoken Of the character of the hos
tilities in that ''debstRble land" War is a
bad thing always, but when it gets into q
simple neighboThood, aud teaches the right
and duty of killing ones friends and rela-
tives, 1t becomes dem0niac. Down about
Knoxville they practiced q better method.
There it was the old game of "Beggsr your
Neighbor," and they denounced and sscon-
fiscated" each other industriously. Up in
the poor hills they could only kill and
bur-, and rob the stable and smoke
house. We were shown the scene of one
Of these neighborhood vengeances. 1t is q
low house at the side of ravine, down
whose steep slope the beech forest steps per-
sistently erect, as if distressing gravitation.
Thirty Confederates had gathered in that
house at countryside frolic, and the i'd
die sang deep in the night. The mountain
girls are very pretty, having dark, opale-
scent eyes, with touch Of gold in them at
side glance, slight, rather too fragile fig
ures, and the singular purity Of complexion
peculiar TO high lands.
The moon went down, and The music Of
the dance, and the schuffle of feet Oh the
puneheon floor, died away into the deep
murmurous chant, the hymn of nature in
the forest. The falling water, sleeping in
the dam or toiling all day at the mill, CUR
giles like the tinkling of castsnets. Every
vine and little leaf is a harp string; every
tiny blade Of grass fntes its singly inaudible
treble; the rustling leaves, chipping cricket,
piping batrachisn, the tuneful hum of in
sects that sleep by day and wake by night,
Vr,inolo and Anu ", fho
Of sound. The reeds and weeds
and trunks Of trees, like the
great and lesser pipes of an organ, thunder
low bass. The melancholy boot of the
owl and the mellow complaint OF the whip
poorwin join in the solemn diapason of the
forest, filling the solitudes with grand,
stately marches. There are no sounds of
nature or art so true in harmony as this
ceaseless murmur of the American woods.
So sccordant is it with the solemn majesty
of form and color that the observer fails
to separate and distinguish it IS
an isolated part in the grand order of Ma
ture. He has felt an indescribable awe in
the presence of serene night and unbound
ed shadow, but to divide and distinguish its
constituent causes were as vain as in the
contour and color of single tree to note
the varied influence of rock, soil, and river.
Over the little farmhouse in the ravine
In the fall of 1868 there fell with the sinking
moon these solemn dirgss of the great dark
woods. The stars frightened their crowns
till Via LGcteG shone highway Of silver
dust or as the shadow of that priTeval
river rolling across the blue champaign of
heaven. The depths of repose that follow
the enjoyment of the young irrigared their
limbs. filing the sensuous nerves and arte-
ries with q delicious nsrcotism-a deep,
quiet, healthful sleep, lulled by the chant of
the serene mother forest.
Hush! A light step, like a blown leaf; the
loose wooden latch rises st the touch of
familiar hand; familiar feet, that have trod
den every inch of that poor log floor, lead
the way; and then all at once, like bundle
of Chinese crackers, intermingled with
shrieks and groaDs aud deep, vehement cur
ses, the rapid reports of pistols Gil the
chambers. The beds, the floors, the walls,
the doors are splashed with blood, and the
chambers are numbered with the dead and
dying men in dreadful agony. Happy
those who passed quietly from the sweet
sleep of Nature to the deeper sleep Of
DEATH OF thirty young men il the flush
of youth, not one escaped. Six Federal
scouts had threaded their way since sunset
from the Federal lines to do this horrible
work. Oh, Captain Jack, swart warriors
Of the Modocs! must we hang you for de-
tending your lsva-bed home In your own
treacherous native way, when We, to pre-
serve an arbitrary political relation, murder
sleeping men in their beds?