Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-11-29
THE FIELD OF FAIR OAKS.
A Thrifty Farmer Speculates in Soldiers
Skulls and Relics.

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The condition of the battle-ground of
Seven Pines and Fair Oaks is 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 n ational
Cemetery of Seven Pines, within quar-
ter of mile of where many men who
wore the blue and gray fell, mark al
most empty graves.
1t would be hard for any one who had
not gone over the ground of one of the
hottest battles ever fought to believe
that twenty-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 place where
a few men can reap financial profit by
guiding visitors to the spot where skulls
protrude from the ground and where all
that remains of many brave lads who
are numbered among the missing lie.
1t is difficult to escape the guides, but
| 1t paws the visitor to make his own way
over the field OF battle. He does not
follow the beaten path in which those
why gain money by exhibiting the bones
of the boys who died amid the roar of
cannon and the rattle of musketry take
their victims, and he gains for himself
positive information of the actual con-
dition of things.
A Sunday Net0S correspondent, in
company with w. H. Barrett and Mich
ael Fogarty, of Philadelphia, and NJ. c.
Thorton, of Wisconsin, slipped away
from these guides and were Mortified at
what 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 ploughed field and had laid down
their lives ere the outer intrenchment
was taken. As night fell on the 30th
day of May, 1862, many of the boys
failed to answer the roll-call and were
placed among the missing. 1t was
partly cultivated field then. Now pines
twenty feet in height cover the bloody
ground and even stand ON the breast
works from behind which the rebel can
mons belched forth death, and where
the marks OF the wheels of the artillery
are still visible. The bones of manv 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 who
ever was intrusted with the duty of col
Letting 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
vicinity, had to pay 1925 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 S.. 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,
disinter the buried soldiers and see that
they were removed to the cemetery just
across the road. Instead of doing SO he
has placed skulls and other bones of the
dead in various places and guides the
visitors by beaten paths to these spots.
He never takes them through the thicket.
Another dodge of this man Lynne is to
find 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 drop
| ped by him when the visitor is not look
ing, and picked up when he is looking.
Richmond Letter to Philadelphia
Nescs.