Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-07-20


 fighting, you could walk 100 yards or so on dead bodies. This pine thicket was then an open field, but it has growed up thick enough since All this field was graveyard. The first years I worked the farm plowed up six skeletons. Visitors from the north took them away as relics. It is a little curious that where visitors used to come at the rate of 1, 1000 year or moro they stopped all at once few years ago, and now there is hardly ever one. Why is that?"
 II think it is because all those who have tho money to spare have come, and other veterans cannot afford it. ."
 "I reckon. I thought some of making sort of tavern and trying to entertain visit ors, but it won't do now. The man who had the place the first year after fathers death plOwcd down all the breaStworks in the fields, and some that was timber then has been cleared and the lines plowed down, and am now very sorry that was done. Now you can't follow the lines un- less you have some one who knows them we'll"
 found it true that could trace no reg ular line. In the woods the breastworks arc still intact, and trees have grown upon them a foot in thickness, with great masses of brush and tangled vines. The interior brcastwork constructed by the Confeder ateS after an entire division of them had been captured at the outer angle is now scarcely visible at all. Striking westward from the McCool house, on a sandy ridge where che land was so poor that it would make a western man sore eyed, found a little the worst looking negro settlement have yet seen in Virginia. It was, in fact, the old plantation quarters, but the man. sion of the master long ago disappeared,
 Si1 into the earth. ventured to the door of one and found it dark inside as the den of a wild beast. The rear window had long since lost it's glass and been roughly board cd up and though could hear the voices of the occupants I could see no one.
 Relics of the Conflict.
 Tho negroes were so stupid that could understand them only with great difficult ty but they had 8 curiosity to show me which they had recently plowed up-a hu man jaw and arm bone. The jaw was one of enormous size, and nearly all the teeth were in tolerable preservation. Not far be- yond Mr G. w. Perry showed me an army medal or bronze badge recently found near his house. A little securing brought out the original inscription and rude scratch ing, perhaps made by the owner. On one side wcro the words, Against rebellion, 1s6l,'' inclosing starred shield on which was the word, Union" On the other side, "W. H. Jackson, Co. D, 18th regi- ment, Mich. Vols. Somerset Co.," A few rods north of MT. Perry's and perhaps 215 miles northwest of tho courthouse, is the Sedgwick monument, and there was the northwest corner of the bloody field of May 12, 1884. General Sedgwick was killed on tho 9th, but the awful slaughter of the 12tk completely overshadowed minor engagements in which from 9, 900 to 5000 men were killed, wounded and captured.
 was considerably moved by the pathet- ic story of Mrs. Catherine Trigg, who still lives on the battlefield and whose son was killed a few days after the battle by the explosion of shell. All the boys who had ventured back to the neighborhood were busy gathering shells which they opened for the powder, and sometimes lead, which they contained. Finding 1t difficult to open a very large one in the usual way, young Trigg tried it with hammer and cold chisel. It exploded, and he was torn | to pieces.
 "He was only 16 years old" said Mrs. Trigg, land intended to go in the army if the war continued, but was cut of. He | and MT. Landrum had opened many and thought they could do it safely. We hur- ried back right after the battle. In fact, l we followed on the heels of the army, for we knew there would be no more fight ing, but the awful stench drove us away again. There come on heavy rains, and after that nearly everybody was sick. In fact, all the rest of that year was the sick Hest ever known, for this is a very healthy country. It Is wonderful country for cherries, and that year the crop beat any l ever known, but they were poison. They made nearly everybody sick for miles | around that ate them, and people beat them off the trees to keep children from eating them. Some said they killed the birds, but never saw that. We laid it to the flies, as no other fruit was hurt that we could notice, and it was the greatest fruit year ever known here, and the biggest | crop of all was on the few trees which lived through the battle right near the