The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-05-02
and Gettysburg and Richmond an awful
pos.ibiIity
VISION OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

possibility.
A VISION OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
Week before last / took carriage and
wound up Lookout Mountain. Up, up, up.
Standing there on the tiptop rock saw five
States of the Union. Scene stupandous and
overwhelming. One is almost disposed to
take off his hat in this presence of what seems
to be the grandest prospect on this continent.
which the red pillows Of Federal and Con-
federate courage surged and broke. There
are the Blue Mountains of North and South
Carolina. With strain OF vision, there is
Kentucky, there is Virginia. At our feet,
Chattanooga and Chicamauga, the pro-
nounciation Of which proper names will
thrill ages to come with thoughts Of valor
and desperation and agony. Looking
each way and any way from the top of that
mountain, eartbworks, earthworks; the
beautiful Tennessee winding through the
valley, curling and coling around, making
letter 5 after letter 5, as if that letter stood
for shame, that brothers should have gone
into massacre with each other, while God
and nations looked on. | have stood on
Mount Washington and on the Sierra Ne
vadas, and on the Alps; but | never
saw 80 far rs from the top
of Lookout Mountain. Why, sirs,
| locked back seventeen years. and saw
rolling up the side of that mountain the
smoke of Hooker's storming party, while the
foundations of eternal rock duaked with the
cannonade. Four years of internocine strife
seemed to come back, and without any chro-
biological order saw the events: Norfolk
Navy Yard on fire; Fort Sumter on fire
Charleston on fire; Chambersburg on fire
Columbia, South Carolina on fire; Richmond
on fire. And saw Ellsworth fall, and Lyon
fall, and Mcpherson fall and Bishop Polk
fall and Stonewall jackson fall; and Isaw
hundreds ofgrave trenches cut into two great
gasbes across the land, the one for the dead
men Of the North, the other for the dead
men ofthe South. And my ear as well as
my eye was quickened, and | heard the
tramp, tramp of enlisting armies, and
heard the explosion Of mines and gunpowder
magazines, and the crash of fertilization
walls, and the swamp angel, and the groan
tho puseless heart of other
dying hosts. And / saw still further
out, and | saw on the banks of
the Penobscot, and the Oregon, and the
Ohio, and the Hudson, and the Roanoke, and
the Gazoo, and the Alabama, widowhood and
and childlessness--som exhaust
ed in grief and others stark mad and siad,
" Enough, enough, have 1 seen into the
past from the top of Lookout Mountain. OF
God show me the future" And standing
there it was revealed to me. And looked
out and 1 saw great populations
from the North moving South,
and great populations from the
the South moving North, and found that
their footsteps obliterated the mark of the
war chargers. And looked, and | saw
such snowy harvests of cotton and such |
golden harvests Of corn MS had never i'm.
agined, and found that the earthworks
were down, and the gun carriages down, and
the war barracks were all down, and |
saw the river winding through the valley
making latter 5 after letter S-no more 5 for |
shame, but 5 for salvation. And as
| saw that, all the weapons of
war were turned into agricultural imple-
ments. was alarmed, and | said, is this
safey" Standing there on the tip top rock of
Lookout Mountain, | was so near heaven
that heard two voices which some way
slipped from the gate, and they sang, "Na-
ton shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more" And
| recognized the two voices. They were the
voices of two Christian soldiers who fell Mt
one a Federal, the other Cen
tederate. And they were brothers!