Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-01-02

| Warrenton pike and presently turned
off to the right to the battle field OF
Chantilly, which is between and abou
equally distant from those two pike:
at this point about one and one
| half miles apart. As Will be remem
bered, this affair took place just after
the second battle of Bull Run, while
| the Union army was falling back
along the Warrenton pike toward the
| defenses of Washington. Jackson
restless and enterprising, was push
ing down the Little River pike in order
to get on the flank of Pope's retreat
ing column. Pope, aware that force
was approaching from this direction,
sent Kearney's and Stevens divisions
to meet it; hence the encounter.
Stevens and Kearney were both killed,
but our troops held the ground until
the column and trains were safely past.
As we drove up to the old Virginia
farm house in the midst of this battle
field, we were welcomed by the elder
MILAN, father of our driver, a man
of perhaps fifty years, of CHEEKY and
hospitable manners.
The wood was piled high in the
old fireplace, and politics and the war
brought at once to the front. MILAN
was soldier in the Confederate army,
enlisted Immediately after the first
battle of Bull Run and held on till the
surrender at Appomattox. But he is
now a republican, as is also our driv-
er and another son living near by.
They have seen enough of Bourbon
rule and want change. They have
come to believe in protection for the
American industries. and in the lib
eral, progressive policy of the repub-
lican party. There must be many
such in the old Dominion, for six out
of the ten Virginia representatives
in the. present congress are republic
ans, and five of these six were in the
Confederate army; and the sixth is
a native Virginian, and doubtless
would have been had he been old
enough, but he was not born till 1858.
This shows how the leaven of repub-
licanism is working in the proud old
mother of presidents.
The keen appetite of our party
did full justice to substantial din
ner. and the farm horses were soon
at the door, for twelve or fourteen
miles were still before US, every inch
historic ground; and amid the thick
falling snow we babe this confederate
republican goodbye, and started for
the pike, observing as we went the
still open trench, not far from the
house and just under the wood, from
which the remains of 80 Union sol
diers were recently taken for burial
at Arlington.
There is neither time nor space
to note here the thoughts and men,
cries which throng the mind as we
turn back to the pike and move on
towards acknowledgements upon
the present and future of this people,
and the moderate but comfortable
condition of things on all sides-mem-
cries of twenty-five years ago, when
beneath the iron hoof of war, Fair
fax county was the picture of desola
ton itself. In one respect there has
been great change in the appear
ance of the country. Then no rem
nant of a fence was anywhere to be
found. The cold soldier, wanting
cup of hot coffee, always knew what
to do with rails. Now the fences are
we'll restored, and fiOcks and herds
congregate beneath the shed or
chew their cud in the lee of the hay
stack "with none to modest or make
afraid Think of cattle and sheep
loose in that country during the war,
and the boys with such an appetite
for fresh meat as the army ration
of hard-tack and ''salt junk" long
continued, was sure to create.
AS Rome was once saved by the
cackling of geese SO the outspoken
hog was frequently saved by the tumult
of his voice: but not so with the
silent, unoffending sheep, or the pa
tient, accomplishing bullock or heif-
er; and hardly ever so either with the
unsuspecting chicken, whose voice was
always in tune, but like that of many
another solo singer, not equal to the
occasion.
But here we are right under
the frowning earthworks on Cen
tervilIe nights, obscured by the dense
vi SllON. SUlll uOU
seen till close upon them. Yes; the
deep, heavy rifle pits come close up
to the pike and the old forts stand
off on either side, just the same as
when completed by Beauregard's
army in the fall and winter after
the first Bull Run. just the same,
too, as when Mcclellan took them in
his grand advance in the spring of
1862, and found them mounted only
with Quaker guns, looking savagely
down the slope in harmless mimicry
of war-just the same, also, as when
occupied by the 10Th regiment on the
night that Stuart made his raid in
rear Of Fairfax Court House. These
works have stood unchanged for a