News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-11-25

Thrifty Farmer specGIates In Soldiers
Skulls and Relics.
[Richmond Letter to philadeIphja News I

[Richmond Letter to Philadelphia NewsI
The condition of the battle ground Of
Seven Pines and Fair Oaks is a disgrace
to the citizens of Virginia and the ma
ton at large. Bones of those who died
in that bloody conflict are scattered
thickly on the surface of the ground.
and If the facts were told, many of the
stones which stand in the National
Cemetery of Seven Pines, within a
quarter of a mile of where many men
who wore the blue and gray fell, mark
almost empty graves.
1t would be hard for any one who
h:>l not gone over the ground of one Of
the hottest battles ever fought to be-
iieVe that twentv-four years afterwards
the bones of the slain lie half hidden
by leaves and brush by the score, and
yet such is the case. The theater Of
the great but undecisive struggle at
Seven Pines has been turned into q
place where few men can reap finan-
cial profit by guiding visitors to the
spot where skulls protrude from the
ground and where all that remains of
many brave lads who are now mum.
bered among the missing lie. 1t is
difficult to escape the guides. but it
pays the visitor to make his own way
over the field of battle. He does not
follow the beaten path in which those
who gain money by exhibiting the
bones of the boys who died amid the
roar of cannon and the rattle of mus
kerry take their victims, and he gains
for himself positive information of the
actual condition of things.
A HURdaV Nfao8 correspondent, in
company with w. Ii. Barrett and
Michael Fogarty, of Philadelphia, and
NJ. G. Thorton, of Wisconsin, slipped
away from these guides and were horri-
fed at r'bat they found. Under the
leaves and twigs and amid the thick
brush of oak and pines, which has
sprung up during the last twenty years,
the bones of many brave men were
found. They had answered to the
order to charge the batteries which
stood on the other side of the plowed
field and had laid down their lives ere
the outer intrenchment was taken AS
night fell on the Both day of May, 1862,
many of the boys failed to answer the
roll-call and were placed among the
missing. 1t was a partly cultivated
field then. Now pines twenty feet in
height cover the bloody ground and
even stand on he breastworks from be-
hind which the rebel cannons belched
forth death, and where the marks of
the wheels of the artillery are still visi-
bic. The bones of many of the fallen
still lie there, although the flag which
flies from the staff in the Seven Pines
Cemetery is within sight. Whether
those bones were clothed in the blue or
the gray is unknown, but many men are
ready to testify that whoever was in
trusted with the duty of collecting
those bones has failed in his trust.
The reason for the failure is manifest.
The fact that the bones still lie there at
tracts many people to the field of car
mage, and every one that falls into the
clutches of the guides must pay his toll.
A party of twenty-one, which included
several men from Philadelphia and vi
entity, had to pay $5.25 for walking
behind a guide for an hour. This same
guide owns 700 acres of the land upon
which the battle was fought. He began
by purchasing one acre, for which he
paid So. The same price was paid for
the remainder of the ground which he
has bought and every cent of the money
was extorted from Northern visitors to
the battlefield He was ordered by
the government to pick up all the
bones, d1sinter the buried soldiers and
see that they were removed to the Gem
etery just across the road. instead of
doing so he has placed skulls and other
bones of the dea in various places and
guides the visitors by beaten paths to
these spots. He never takes them
the thicket. Another dodge
of this man is to find a battered
musket ball on the ground and sell it to
the visitor for fifty cents if he can, and
for ten cents if he can get no more.
The balls are dropped by him when the
visitor is not looking, and picked up
when he is looking. 1t bothers the
man, however, when the party he is
guiding is large, and when he dropped
the ball last Sunday afternoon the ac-
tion was seen, and relic selling for that
day was at a very low ebb.