The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-09-19
ON HISTORIC GROUND.
The Cold Spring Harbor Battlefield
as Tt Is Today.
]. 4. BBADLE'S RAMBLBS IN VIRGINIA

]. 4. BEADLE'S RAMBLES In VIRGINIA
Awful Experience During the Battle
VHhere blood FIOwed In Rivers
scene OF the Worst Blunder or the
war
COLD Harbor, Va, Sept 1z-It was
IN the local dialect, hot enough to roast
anigger'' on the afternoon left the high
open country near the Mattapony and
plunged into the wilderness that borders
the North Anna. In the piny woods
there was not a breath of air, and vege-
tation seemed to give off a sour smell,
all sorts of flying insects made it inter
esting for me, and when I sat down on
q log the ehigoes got in their work SO
effectually that on stripping that night
/ found my ankles heartrending sight.
In the heavily timbered lowlands found
all sorts Of queer creatures, which but
dimly remember as common on the
Wabash sloughs in my boyhood, such as
the snake feeder or mosquito hawk, the
DEVILS darning needle and all those red
hot little gnats that breed from oak
balls and such. But why continue? Why
lacerate the public bosom with details
of intolerable itching and feverish
scratching; of alternating hummock and
pine fat; of industrious hogs who root
for living and have noses for their
business; of Iop cared hounds, from two
to ten at a house, who rush out with
murderous howl as if they would eat
me, but retire from an opened umbrella,
of the long, lank, lean, leathery looking
men and the half barren land, SCARED
and marred rather than improved by
their shiftless hand
Mighty Healthy.
One thing, however, l will add, as it
has been a great surprise to me- have
not yet seen a snake in the state. OF
course there are snakes here, but they
must be rare, for I have rambled for
weeks in scrubby timber and through
wild lands which out our way would be
reptilian paradise The rock in this
section is 1nstratified, so there are no
lodges and crevices for snake harbors,
and the people tell me all this North
Anna valley was once cleared and cnl-
tivated, SO 1 suppose the snakes were
then exterIninated. Another thing worth
noting is that after one gets below Han
over he hears no more that '.this is q
mighty healthy country" as he hears
SO often IN Spottsylvania county. All
along the Chickahominy the people ad-
nit that the air is bad, and I was
amused, but not at allsurprised, to find
more than one man who was rather
anxious to move west and to hear my
host tell how he ''warn t real well at
this season, how ''his vittles sort O.
disagreed with him., - how he had fsour
risin s on his stomach" and it often
seemed as if he just couldn't get up in
the morning. his legs ached so, and
when he lifted real hard he ''felt like.
an iron bar was run into the small of
his back -
Chief Justice James B. Mexican Of
Utah, who was an officer in the Bemis
Heights IN. Y. regiment, told me that
in the unaccountable delay of a month
which Mcclellan made after the battle
of Fair Oaks his brigade lost men by
sickness about as rapidly as it would
ordinarily lose in an active campaign of
fighting. The judge himself came out
of the army on his back, and when sent
to Utah in 1870 was still sufferer from
Chickahominy malaria. From the North
Anna crossing it is now difficult TO get
a clear general view of the region trav-
ersed by either Grant or Mcclellan, as,
in the case Of the latter particularly,
following the lines would involve con-
tinuous seesaw across the stream near
est Richmond. It will be remember
that Grant moved east from Spottsyl-
vania Court House and Lee south by the
telegraph road across the North Anna
and then down its right bank to con-
front the Federals, and SO they came
together near the crossing of the Rich
mond and Fredericksburg railroad, And
this resulted in one of the oldest situa-
lions Of the war.
Lee and Grant.
Lee formed his lines with the river in
his front just as he had twice done on
the Rappahannock, but Warren succeed
ed in crossing the Federal right at Jeri-
cho ford, compelling Lee to ''refuse his
left" and Hancock fought his way
across on the other wing, compelling
Lee in like manner to trefuse his
right. At the same time his center
held the river firmly at point where
the crossing is extremely difficult on ac-
count of precipitous banks. Thus it came
about that Lees lines were like the two
sides of a square with the corner firmly
planted on the river, and Grant, while
leaping around him in an irregular
semicircle, could not transfer his men
from one wing to the other without
twice crossing the river and at points
where the crossing was extremely diff
cult. Lee at the same time colt5 NOT