The Portland daily press., 1893-09-14

sterile, unyielding soil and the strange
lonesomeness of the woods. War would
have avoided it, but war was dragged
there. Every acre of the dark pines,
every acre Of the tangled thickets, every
dismal swamp and barren knoll echoed
the shrieks and groans of the wounded
men and the travail of fierce battle. His
tory may tell you that it is a singular
spot for grapple of enemies thirsting
for carnage, but history will not paint the
wierdness of even a peaceful ride through
the desolate tract. In the first grapple
between Grant and Lee in this dense
tangle 20, 600 men fought for five hours,
and at the going down of the sun 5000
lay dead and wounded. In the. seven
miles front occupied by the armies there
were not half a dozen spots where a single
battery could be massed to sweep an
acre of clear ground. There was not a
spot where brigade commander could
stand and overlook his four regiments
as they stood in battle. There was at
one point on the right a cleared spot of
about two acres in extent, and federal
battery, which was dragged through the
forests was placed in position there about
o'clock in the morning of the second
day. In ten minutes three of the guns
were silenced by the musketry fire and a
capture the whole. Here two regiments
grappled and fought until 300 men en-
cumb ered the ground. Again the battery
opened, and again it was charged, and
when the confederates retired the dead
had to be corded up to get them out of
the way. Again and again fresh ar
tillerists were brought up and fresh fire
opened, and again and again the confed-
crates charged and added scores and
hundreds to that awful pyramid of dead.
Grant had not advanced on his left.
Where the dead fell in the gray of the
morning there was the battle line when
night shuddered at the sights it hid
from view. The fighting on the second
day was to save that narrow and tortuous
highway known as the Brockroad to the
federals. 1t was the path into and out of
that great forest. Along it must move
every man, horse, gun and wagon. 1t is
dark and lonesome highway as you
ride over it today, and every foot'of it
has story of blood. The burial parties
found hundreds who had crawled into
the thickets and swamps and died, and
years after the government contractors
who were removing the dead to the
national cemeteries, found scores of
skeletons which had never, been buried
at all.
When night came again the federals
had secured possession of the road, and
under the pines were thousands of MANNED
and crippled-and as twilight faded into
stretching over swamp and thicket,
there arose a direful sound. 1t was
murmur at first Then it SwelIed to
a steady cry-not one shout or groan or
shrek, but thousands of them mingled
together and quivering over thicket
and rising over the pines like a wall of
gathering tempest It was the piteous
cry of the wounded and helpless as night
added to the frightful horrors of that
sombre wilderness. Detroit Free Press
SPECTACLE OF :~.THE HOUSE OF
LORDS.
How England Takes 1t and What 1t Por-
tends.
Harold Frederick, in his London letter
to the New York Times, says: ."Gilbert
and Sullivan began this week directing
rehearsals of their new comic opera at
the Savoy. Interest in this event, which
gives welcome new lease Of life to a
phase of human enjoyment has
been much dampened however, by the SUI
perior opera bouffe attractions at West
Lords has proved much funnier. than the
most confident of advance agents had
promised. Everybody has laughed SO
steadily, in fact, that there is danger that
the underlying gravity and importance
of the thing being somewhat lost sight of.
be imported into the struggle later on,
it must be admitted that John Bull enters
upon this great advertised life-and-death
contest with the bogeyman of hereditary
privilege with broad grin on his we'll
known rubicud visage.
1t really has been extraordinarily
funny. Something like fifth of the
whole number of performers had never
been inside the Chamber of Peers till
last Tuesday. To fully one-half the re-
ma1nder it was almost as unfamiliar.
These titled strangers, whipped up to
London from their grouse and partridge,
and denied even the sacred solace of the
ST. Leger, swarmed into the corridors of
the House of Lords on Tuesday in droves
like rustics on q personally conducted
tour through the sights of the metropo-
lis. Policemen had to be stationed at
every turn in the passages to show them
the way to the scene of their delibera-
tions AS for identifying them--that
was quite beyond the powers of the SER
wants of the House. Apparently any
elderly farmer wearing a covercoat with
side pockets could pass freely in and
take his seat without a question. This
bucolic effect colored the whole assem-
blage. In Difference to the occasion all
wore black coats, but their sunburnt,
heavy faces, huge red hands and awk-
ward postures kept perpetually suggest
ing that they ought instead to be in
tweeds and CATERS. Here i'll London we
think of peers, mostly, as carefully
dressed, even dapper, habitues of Picca-
dilly and the Row. But in this great
formal muster Of the peerage this hand
full of well-tailored men of the world was
fairly showed under by serried masses
of countrified squire.
This effect of hayseed was by no means
confined to appearances. No tub hump-
Inc. dam acnolIe could haun Wi sIa ed fc,,. q