Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-09-24

II Wy O1Ouo oOAuSSAO, ohO IOpuOICeah0
have elected SO out of total 80
voted for"
Visit to Virginia Battle Fields.
Mr.. Editor,-On the evening of |
July Sd / left Washington via. the
Baltimore and Potomac railway, and |
two hours had covered the sixty miles
between that city and Fredericksburg, |
Va. How different that rapid ride |
from the weary, dusty marches in the |
hot sun OF winters mud and snow of
twenty-five years ago. The fields |
that once were swept as with ''be-
som of destruction are now clothed
with a fine growth of pine. AS a gen
eral rule the fences have not been
restored and tillage only in part.
Our train crossed Acquia Creek in
sight of the old wharf at Belle Plain
Landing, and leaving White Oak
church on the left, crossed the Rap
pahannock above Franklin's Crossing
and landed it's passengers in the city
of Fredericksburg.
On the train I had learned that
veteran from Connecticut kept the
Exchange hotel, to which, with
party of old soldier visitors, L was
quickly driven. The Exchange hotel
is kept by Messrs. Cotton & Hills,
and by them we were cordially wei
coined and at once made to feel at
home. The hotel is war time build
ing, with three stories and basement,
and under its present management is
we'll kept and well furnished lighted
throughout by the incandescent cleo
trio light and contains the finest war
museum that / have seen anywhere.
The table is set in homelike man
ner. with an abundance of we'll cook
ed and we'll served food.
Veteran Cotton has gathered from
the surrounding battlefeldslwithin the
last two years nearly every conceiva-
BILE kind of relic produced by war.
Sabers, swords, muskets, bayonets,
carbines, shields, case shot, solid
shot, bullets, canteens, etc., etc.
Sections cut from trees containing
grape. shells and bullets, form album
dant and very interesting material
for study. A block cut from pine
tree, about 21a by inches, contains
| five bullets. A board from a fence,
possibly about five feet in length, has
eight bullet holes through it, while at
one side of the room stands a section
cut from a tree about nine feet in
height and two feet in diameter, (which
by grape shot and bullets had been
riddled into splinters until the tree
was cut down. 1t would require a
days study and an entire letter to
give fair account of the relics bro't
from the battlefield into this museum.
That night / fell into slumber lull-
ed by the low, plaintive notes of the
darkies' songs beneath my window,
while dusky fingers nimbly picked
the banjo strings. The next morning,
July 4th, l was up at half past four
about the same hour / rose one morn
ing in May, '63, when stopping for a
brief time in that same locality-and
stepping around to the livery stable
at the corner of Charlotte and Prin-
cess Ann streets, found colored
groom already among the horses, and
asked him for a good saddle horse.
"Yas sah,'' he said, and led out 9
trim built gray, and as he handed me
the rein, said with smile, 81 think
You'll find him a good traveller, sab. "
And a good traveller indeed he was
: with ambition enough for a whole
troop of cavalry. Down across Han
over street, over the railroad and gu
of the city by the turnpike he gallop
ed ,while / had close work to hold hin
in from a racers run. Just why ;
sunken road is in the South called ;
turnpike, I don't know. We wer
soon at Hazel Run, the position from
which the old Vermont Brigade charg
ed Willis Hill. Lee and Marie
d Heights were before me. Many
Geen Mountain boy will never forge
. that position-the frowning height
> beyond, the long stretch of plain, tn
railroad cut How the shell sweE
/ through the ravine as we crossed Hf
} eel Run and climbed up the Height
Il into the works of Johnny Reb. Ever
thing is there the same to-day, e1
: cept the armed foe and the bellowin
lie guns. Even the earth-works remain
V except that Willis Hill, on which ws
ol the redoubt captured by the 9th We
mont. is now covered with the viii
u marble slabs of the dead-over twel'
hundred marked "Unknown" in tt
% national cemetery.
Giving my horse the rein, he so
y reached point in the turnpike opp
site the old Bernard house, viii
was Franklin's headquarters duri1
les the battle of Dec, 1862. This, to
Ia marked the position of the Vermo
Xix brigade, both in that battle and t
set skirmish of June 9th, 1868. Tul
'he ing into the path | galloped direc
tn toward the ruins of the Berna
IDS house, down the slope and across
for culyert over the little run that in v
40 weather iS full of wafer and DIR