The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-06
THE BATTLEFIELD OF BULL RUN.
How Time Has Healed the Sears of the War
and Taught the People to Forget It.


The first battle of Bull Run stands first in
the alphabet of great American battles.
Greater battles have been fought hereabou is;
greater battle, indeed, on this same ground.
But the first has fastened itself on us. There
Is savage fascination about it which we
who lived on that day cannot escape. And
yet 1t was not yesterday. | saw lounging
against a lamp-post here at Manassas, not an
hour ago, a handsome young Southerner
pulling at his mustache. | approached
and asked him of the battle. He had been
born since it was fought So you see
1t was not fought yesterday, this battle
OF Bull Run, when the cannon shook
the earth even to the shores of Oregon.
And do you know the North played the air
OF Dixie" in this first battle? 1t is so. The
South had not yet learned it, but played
The Girl | Left Behind me-" Let us look
in upon this battlefield as we look upon the
face of one whom we knew well nearly a
quarter OF century ago By wide, we'll
kept country road, through cornfeds and
clumps of oak, chestnut, walnut, hickory
and half dozen other kinds of scrub trees,
some of them badly shot to pieces, we were
driven toward the muddy, sluggish, crooked
and ugly little stream of Bull Run. In this
drive OF four miles we met one man on horse
back; we passed one man on horse and
barefoot negro boy on foot, driving little
flock of sheep. Overhead 1 saw a single
raven; not bird, not a squirrel, on either
hand; but the crickets and grasshoppers, in
the comfelds and clumps Of wood on either
side of us, chirped and sang necessarily.
AT the end of four miles we turned
through gate to the right into a field; cows
were scattered here and there around the
crescent OF the hill; on the crest of the hill
stood long frame farmhouse; back of this
house little brown stone monument 10 the
dead soldiers in front of it, in the door-yard,
grayestone. The house which formerly
stood here had been torn to splinters during
the battle The lady buried in the grave in
the door-yard was killed here She was the
mother ofShe kind old gentleman who now
inherits this place. This battlefield was his
mothers farm. 1t is now his and he shows
you about over it. He was teaching school
down at Alexandria at the time his mother
was killed here; a school teacher for forty
years. He and his sister live in
this old gray house together no one but
these two old deaf people for may be q
mile about. The peach-trees are breaking
down under loads of fruit in the heart of the
battlefield, little way down the slope of the
hill below the grave in the dooryard. Long
strings of fat turkeys tread the tangled grass
through the orchard, chasing the grasshop-
pers. Below this orchard, hall a mile away,
and curving around in a muddy crescent,
but quite hidden by young growth of trees,
creeps Bull Run, On the morning of the
battle the broad cornfelds on the other side,
ana way out yOnQer miles away over the
foot hills, the federal bayonets cleaned by
tens of thousands. They were marching for
Beauregard's rear, or rather FOR the Mid
land line, by which he had come up from
the South. He had come out from Manassas,
four miles away, to stop this movement as
all the world knows. The North was not to
be stopped, Hence the battle here. But
this is trenching on history and we
must draw the line. You can see where the
South retreated to where stood Jackson,
like stone wall"
Back of this house, where the old school
master fivek1with his elder sister, about a
hundred yards and almost at the Top of the
gently sloping hill on the outer edge of the
tall, rank corn, and against young growth
of pines, is the place where Jackson got
down from his horse to pray. And here it
was he sat his horse, was wounded, held his
men in stubborn line that day while the
storm of battle beat against them and so won
his singular name. On the front of this
siopng hill that lies here, between this house
and the place where Jackson sat his horse
during the battle, the dead lay thickest when
the fight was done. The corn is rank and
tall, but l do not see, as some pre-
tend to, when looking over the field OF
Waterloo, that the blood of brave men has
put any particular mark Of vitality upon it,
The truth is, if some one did not point out
to you all this, you would know nothing
whatever of the battlefield of Bull Run. Ma
ture covers up all such scars; time heals the
wounds on the breast of our common mother
as we'll as on our own. Wander about here
for week, as l have done, and, save for the
one little brown stone monument here, the
old earthworks at Manassas and some Scared
old trees, you would not know there had
been any battle here. l have picked up one
bullet and one button from a soldiers coat;
that is all. But on the earthworks near Man
asses, under peach tree, while picking up
peaches l found an Indian arrowhead
Think of it, and follow these two facts:
What other battles, what other races had
fought for the fields of Virginia ages and ages
before?
Not many people come to visit this battle
field. l have seen a thousand at Waterloo
for single visitor here.
The great trench where the dead were
buried on the sloping hill Immediately under
where Stonewall Jackson sat his horse dur
ing the battle is still trench. This is a sore
that refuses to heal. 1t has become a little
drain or rivulet. The bones of the dead were
mostly taken away at the close of the war,
and this opened the trench anew. This
portion of the battlefield is a pasture now.
little line of trees has grown along
the banks of this trench Under
these rank young trees a good many
sleek-spotted cattle stood yesterday chewing
the cud and laziy switching flies You
never hear a sound of any kind around here
at all, no coming and going of carriages, as at
Waterloo and other great battlefelds of
Europe. The trees are turning a little red
in the blush of early autumn. There is a
hazy gray atmosphere over all here which
makes the stiffness seem more STILL weary
ghost of smoke of war. In the corners of
the old Virginia worm fences the wild berry
grows rank and red, as if dripping with
blood. The very earth is red, as ii the bosom
of mother earth bleeds perpet ually for her
brave dead who fell in the battle here.