Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-01-20

| quality and design, was not lacking in quanti-
| tv, and continued during the day and night
| Tin horns of various sizes were paraded and
blown on the streets by boys singly and in
squads during day and evening. Dinner
| parties were made at the club rooms, and
| the season was one of great jolity and pleasure
| for all classes. The colored band entirely
| negroes) marched through the principal
| streets PLAYING the "John Brown song" The
| Capitol building, where Davis was inaugu-
| rated President of the Coufederacy, over
| looked these, and the planters stood about
| the market places and saw them pass. What
| a "marching on" it must seem to such men
| as really trusted in the Coniederacy, and now
| are nearly or quite ruined by its collapse;
| who had perhaps these very men as slaves,
| and who look upon all men who aided in the
| overthrow of slavery as promoters of their
| utter ruin! Here, again, we took Major Z.
| A. Miller, formerly clerk of the Maine House
| of REPRESENTATIVES, and ID. NJ. Snow Esq,
| formerly Il resident of the Pine Tree State, by
| the hand, with much pleasure. In our walks
| about town we found the japonicas in BIOS
som and other tender plants in fine condition.
There seems little need of greenhouses here,
so mild is the winter and so gratifying the
success of all florists in open air culture.
While at Montgomery we crossed to Selma,
d.. w
tremely quiet, and the hotels not such as to
tempt a man to extend the time of his stay.
From Montgomery to Columbus, the same
region of sandy soil with a surface consider
ably broken, exists and the grades on the
railways are heavy for this reason. Columbus
is beautiful city, very beautiful in location,
with wide, airy streets and considerable bust
ness prosperity. One very noticeable change
as we reach the higher and broken lands in
this sandy region or the "PiRev woods
country" as the citizens call it, is the great
Improvement in the water, which seems as
pure and sweet from the springs as from the
granite fountains of New England. From
Columbus to Macon, Georgia, are few settle.
mentS, Fort Valley being the principal one.
This is at the junction of the Muscogee and
South Western Il. II. leading from Macon to
Albany, by Americas and Smithville. Next
to Americas between it and Macon, is the
little station of Andersonville, that has be-
come so familiar to all ears as the synonyme
of all the horrors and woes of the military
prison-pen in its worst forms. 1t has resumed
its former insgnifcance, save that the ma
tional cemetery here speaks with a silent
eloquence more powerful than words of the
suflerings of that fend of woe and distress.
The lands here were owned by Mr.. Dykes,
who had removed here about year before
the opening of the war, and purchased about
a thousand acres for plantation, erected mills
aid shops and prepared to manage his farm with
success. But in an evil hour for him the officers
of the Confederacy selected this asthe place
for the prison, and for his circumstances
we'll nigh arrested him for treason as he AYERS
We walked along the road from the little sta
ton to the stockade, by the houses and ruins
and along the creek that now flows as quietly
as if it had never been disturbed by the hands
of the suffering soldiery imprisoned there.
The planks along its banks remain, and the de-
cayiug cook houses on the side hill near by
The holes in the ground burrowed for shelter
are still to be seen, and over the higher por-
tons of the ground, the wells dug by the pris-
oners are yet in good state of preservation.
The stockade of pine posts has rotted away
and fallen down in many places, yet the two
lines of these are plainly visible from the rail-
road, and but q short distance away. The
surface of the ground has grown up thickly
with oak, in many places hiding the soil worn
so smooth and bare by the tread of many feet.
At the corners are the works on which the
cannons were placed for the suppression of
any disturbance among the prisoners, COM
pletely commanding the whole place. The
''dead line" has been removed pieces by piece
BY relic hunters till it is said there are many
cords extant that ere not used for this pur-
pose, and buttons have been eagerly sought
for till they are extremely rare. few fints
! which were used evidently for making fires,
and a walking stick cut inside the stockade,
we brought away as a memento of the place,
and walked over to the cemetery where 80
many thousands of these suffering ones at
last found rest 1t is carefully laid out and
cared for, and neat headstones mark the
graves of each. Shrubs and flowers are be-
ing planted, notices are placed at suitable in
tervals, and the stars and stripes float daily
from the centre of the place. For those who
died in this prison, no moie appropriate spot
can be found for their resting places than I'M
der these very pines, whose leaves repeated
their whispered words OF suffering, and as the
winds pass the spot chant continual requiem.
We learned much from Mr.. Dykes Of the
management Of the place, of the rush and
disturbance consequent on the assembling
such masses of men at a point so far from
mills and prepared subsistence. with the otf-
GERS unprepared and but a single railroad for
the transportation of all necessary articles.
and were gratfed to know that even here the
kindness of woman overcame the bitterness
of feeling with which the Northern soldier
was regarded, (for we could not forget that
these were looked upon as invading enemies
of the most cruel and barbarous type, for so
they were represented by many of those who
for political purposes, "fred the Southern
heart, and that many of those who had their
families in the Confederate ranks gave from
their scanty store to the suffering soldier in
blue as veil az to the soldier in gray, in the
wards of the hospital and wherever they were
able to do so. We left the place with glad
ness, as one wakes from an unpleasant dream,
and a joy in the consciousness that the men of
all the States who have been soldiers know
each other so well, that they would not coun-
tenaGce another war, and thus that the great
| ! ~ I H.
are perpetual bond of peace, which the pol
| itcians cannot move for personal advantages
or sectional spite to an appeal to the arbitra-
ment Of arms. A. B. c.