The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1883-10-25
BULL RUNS FIELD.
The Fascination of the Scenes
Where Stonewall Jackson
Sat His Horse.
joaquin Miller. ]

We got a good dinner at Manassas, and hir-
ing a team and driver we set out for the bat
tle-field OF Bull Run, -four miles distant, over
the same road which Beanregard Travelled to
meet Mcdowell on July 81, 1861.
The trouble now is not what to say but
what not to say in a single letter. Briefly,
then, the south was massing for battle on this
point. You can to this day see miles of
earthworks here. Fort Beauregard is still an
imposing piece Of fertilization, earthwork,
with beech trees, pear trees, willows, and in
| fact all kinds of wild as well as tame woods
climbing over. 1t is too heavy to level down
and restore agnin to the dominion of the
pillow. But nearly all the other lines and
earth forts have quietly surrendered to the
husbandman, and, mounting there to-day,
the tall corn stands in regiments flashing its
green, bent sabTes in the sun.
This first battle of Bull Run stands first in
the alphabet of great American battles.
Greater battles have been fought bereabouts;
a greater battle, indeed, on this same ground.
But the first has fastened itself on us. There
is n savage fascination about it which we
who lived on that day can not escape. And
yet it was not yesterday. l saw Longing
against a lamp-post here at Manassas, not an
hour ago, a handsome young southerner pull
ing at his mustache. l approached and
asked him of the battle. He had been born
''N~N wa 3 ~ " ~ ~ "oo NV
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 battlei 1t is so. The south had not
yet learned it, but played: 1.-THE Girl 1
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 a
century Ago.. By a wide, well-kept country
- -. Il
chestnut, walnut, hickory and half a 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 horseback; we
passed one man on a horse and a barefoot
negro boy on foot, driving a little flock of
sheep. Overhead 1 saw a single raven; not
a bird, not a squirrel, on either hand; but the
crickets and grasshoppers in the corn fields
and clurnps of wood ON either side of US
chirped and sang necessarily.
At the end of four miles we turned through
a 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 a long
frame farmhouse; back of this house a little
brown stone monument 10 the dead soldiers;
in front of it, in the door-yard, a graveyard.
The house which formerly stood here had
been torn to s~plinters during the battle. The
lady buried in the grave in the door-yard
was killed here. She was the mother of the
kind old gentleman who now inherits this
place. This battlefield was his mothers
farm. II is now his, and he shows you over
it. He was teaching school down at Alexan-
drin pt 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 many u milo about. The
peach trees are breaking down under loads
of fruit in the heart of the battlefield,
a little way down the slope of the hill below
the grave in the door. yard. Long strings of
fat turkeys tread on tangled grass through
the orchard, chasing the grasshoppers. Below
this orchard, half a mile away and curved
around in a muddy crescent, but hidden by a
young growth of trees, creeps Bull Run. On
the morning of the battle in the broad corn
fields on the other side and away out yonder
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 Midland 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 bat
tie. But this is trenching on history, and we
llusb Univ III luc. 1Ou Chn see NneTe Tue
south retreated to where stood jackson, like
a stone WALL
Back of this house, where the old
schoolmaster lives with his oldest
sister, about a hundred yards, and al
most at the top of the gently sloping hill, on
the outer edge of the tall, rank corn, and
against a young growth of pines, is the place
where jackson got down to pray. And here
it was he sat his horse, was wounded, held
1 4. --- T. -. II. 49,. -
storm Of battle beat against them, and so
won his singular name. On the front of this
sloping 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 | do not soc as some pretend to
when looking over the field of Waterloo,
that the blood of brave men has put any par
ticular mark Of vitality upon it. The truth
is, II some one did not point out to you all
this, you would know nothing whatever of
the battle Of Bull Run. Nature cover up all
such scars; time heals the wounds on the
breast of our common mother, as well MS on
our own. Wander about here for a week, as
l have done, and, save for the one little
brownstone monument here, the old earth
works at Manassas and some Scared old trees,
you would not know there had ever been any
battle here. / have picked up one bullet and
one button from n soldiers coat; that is all.
But on the earthworksn near Manassas, under
a peach tree, while picking up peaches, l
found an Indian arrowhead. Think of IL,
and follow these two facts: What other bat
ties, what other races had fought for the
fields of Virginia ages and ages beforei
Not many people come to visit this battle
field. | have seen a thousand at Waterloo
for a single visitor here.
The great trench where the dead were
buried on this sloping hill Immediately under
where Stonewall Jackson sat on his horse
during the battle, is still a 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 battle field is a pasture now.
A little line of trees has grown along the
banks Of this trench. Under these rank
young srees a good many sleek spotted cattle
stood yesterday, chewing their cuds and
lazily switching flies. You never hear a
sound OF any kind around here at all, no
coming and going, as at Waterloo and other
great battle fields OF Europe. The trees are
turning a little red In the blush of early
autumn There is n hazy gray atmosphere
over all here, which makes the stiffness seem
more still; a weary ghost OF the smoke of
war. In the corners of the old Virginia worm