The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-04-16

reported that Burnside was taking up
his pontoons. | shall never forget our
ride that day, and the picture of the
| battle field and the town is one which
| shall never lose; the roads filed with
| refugees eafloat as well as in every con-
ceivable vehicle; their families and
household gear packed together indis-
crininately; the roads almost bottom
| less and Uttered up with stuff dropped
or thrown out in the exodus of the past
few days; fragments of vehicles. house
| hold furniture, books. wearing apparel,
playing cards. everything.
remember my brother and / were
| both on sorreI horse belonging to my
uncle, Col. Nelson, riding behind, and
on top of bank, coming suddenly on a
| dead horse and soldier lying as they had
| been shot in the bushes, he SHE'D down
the bank and dropped US both of We
were soon up again, however, not mind
| ing the fall, but little shalsy over the
| CHASTITY sight in the path above our
heads. This, however. was nothing to
what we were to see. The dead men
| had nearly all been taken up, and were
buried in long trench or trenches
stretching across sort Of common. But
saw more dead horses than l had ever
! seen alive, and as we rode along the
| places where the fight had ragged fiercest,
we had abundant evidence of what had
been there. l remember at Mary's
Heights seeing the fragments of the gun
! which had exploded while Gen. Lee
stood close by it. At the foot of the
heights seventeen men of Meagher's
brigade had fallen in five minutes. /
remember that a railroad-cut along
the road was said to have lain in
the direct line of fire and to have been
almost filed with dead. A little or
chard was whipped into fragments, and
a plank fence behind which line had
lain was shivered into splinters from
one end to the other.
Unless l had seen it I would not have
believed that men could bleed so much.
1t looked as if barrels of blood had been
poured upon the ground along that
fence. As we rode into town the scene
beggared description. Ear thworks and
berricades had been thrown up by the
union troops to shelter themselves from
the rolling fire which poured from the
heights above them. l remember cnil-
dren were at work with fire shovels fill
ing up the trenches and on one earth
work tiny confederate flag was plant
ed, and the youngsters mounted on the
red embankment cheered as we rode by.
The houses We're riddled and battered
by bullet and shot, and the church stee-
pie had several cannon balls through it.
All of this was vivid enough to me
as rode the same road through the
same country and town so many years
afterward. We could tell the place
where my fathers camp had been by
the location Of the roads, but there was
little else to show that one among the
greatest battles of history had been
fought here and that every turf be-
meath the feet was soldiers sepulcher.
The town lay SO peaceful and quiet that
it justified my fathers speech that the
only signs he saw We're in the cemetery.
Yet how history has tramped these
quiet hills. Here at fredericksburg it.
self. there away to the westward a few
miles, where jackson executed his IA
nous flank movement, which nothing
but genius could have conceived, and
nothing but genius could have per-
formed, and doubling up Hool1er's wing
marched beyond the stars, with the
name and fame of Stonewall jackson
dead on the field of glory at the age of
thirty-nine. Just back of US is the Will
derness, and there is Spottsylvania
7
in that long struggle which was to give
them both fame, and end only when
Lee. having failed 10 drive Grant back
across the Rappahannoclz, but having
wedged him south of Richmond with a
loss of more men than he himself had in
the field, met him at Appamattox u
that interview when the dignity of the
conquered was almost to eclipse the |
fame of the conqueror. Poor as the |
country seems it is rich with memories |
of our race.
IF one wishes to see the changes of |
time let him stop at Dumfries. We |
came upon it one day unexpectedly as |
one might come upon an abandoned |
nest from which the birds |
had gone. Once town of considera BILE |
with a good importing |
trade, the filling up of the creek, which |
once brought ships to its doors, left it
stranded high and dry on the Stafford |
hills, and it lies to-day deserted viii
lage, amid the deserted woods. It is
said that George Peabody began his
great life there and others who achieved
eminence did the same. A few ruinous
large brick houses stand at intervals on
the slope, back from the country road,
facing imaginary streets, and a large
mill hangs gray and lonely over dry
Or drying sand-flled stream as monu-
nent 20 the life that has passed. We
were told Of cemetery and made our
way up the hill through a dense growth
If pines. We found it in the heart of
the woods-an extensive burial ground
aid of in handsomely Enclosed sections
md filed with tombstones and monu-
uents carved with the emblems of pride
or grief.
THOMAS NELSON PAGE.
MOORISH HORSEMEN'S SPORT.