Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1881-09-22
necessarily, and what was spot of triumph

necessarily, and what was spot of triumph
is now a slaughter.pen-a place OF torn earth
soaked in the blood of four thousand men.
The Crater is the main object of interest on
the lines of fortiications and it is more fire.
quently visited than Forts Steadman, Has
kell and Sedgwick, which lie within sight to
the North and East. There are traces of
Fort McGilver not far beyond Fort Steadman
and the outlines of the, latter are just as dis
tinctly marked. All the traverses have been
removed and all the covered ways destroyed,
for Fort He'll, as the armies nicknamed the
Steadman redoubt, is now garden wherein
truck is raised for the Petersburg market.
A farm house has been erected in the enclos-
ure and O. P. Hare now peacefully dwells
where Gordon and havoc once swept along.
Fort Haskell is in better preservation than
any other of the Federal redoubts. Pine
trees grow in and around the enclosure and
both in the inner and outer works with lit
tie use of the shovel could be made as for
midabe as in the days of death. Many of
the oaks in the vicinity contai in bullets, nor is
it unusual to pick up fdsty reminders of bat
tie anywhere along the line from that point
Southwark to Fort Sedgwick. Only half of
that famous place of strength now remains
1t was built across the Jerusalem Road on
two plantations. The part on Mr.. Griger's
farm was long ago leveled and is now in corn,
but tile half on the East side Of the road
still stands. Mahone's Fort Damnation shows
many remnants. Fort Davis is in good con.
dition and Fort Rice has suffered little from
the wear and tear of time. In this way the
curious visitor might follow the lines of de-
fense and contravallatiou down to Hatcher's
Run and the Five Forks fields. Wherever
the land was cultivated before the war the
works have been leveled, but where the lines
passed through woods the works are very
much as they were when abandoned. In the
high and rolling lands the woods contain
white oak, poplar and hickory, but in the
light, sandy soils grow pines, ash, elm and
buttonwood. At points where link in the
chain of Notifications is missing the line may
be traced by the color of the subsoil. Where
the land is titled most of the shells and bits of
lead have been picked up, yet every rain
washes out Minnie balls and grape on all the
farms between the lines.
There is delightful thing about Peters
burg that never before has been mentioned in
print. The city is bordered in its suburbs by
long belt of peach trees, which, in the
Spring, turn myriads of white blossoms out to
the sun, and thus give beautiful girdle to
the place once trussed with bands of iron
and cordons of steel. In that long and weary
year of watchfulness the Southern soldiers
were glad to get fruit, and the best things
that came to them from the Carolinas were
peaches, whereof the pink flesh was sweeter
than honey dew. The kernels were dropped
upon the battle ground the army tramped
sorely on to Appomattox Winter came
again, and then from the trenches sprang
fruit trees that have fourished to this day.
Down in the sunny South there is a kind of
peach that shows white bud elsewhere the
blossom is touched with pink. All other
peach trees around Petersburg have the pink
flower, and the battlefield peach thus keeps
its mark and proud distinction. So now,
starting from the river at the North, Lees
line may be traced for six miles or more by
the far-reaching orchard planted in blood.