The Portland daily press., 1895-07-26

Who Fell at Bull Run, July, 21, 1861. y
On the other side Erected June 10,
1865. ut was constructed by the sixteenth
Massachusetts, light battery, and nearly
every surviving officer who fought in that
BATTLE was present at the dedication.
Envious time has laid her yandal fingers
heavily upon the, at best, rough memo
rial stone, and it is far on the way to tum-
bling over while the soft sand stone will
soon leave of the inscription only mem
ory. Relic hunters have wantonly defaced
1t, too. 1t ought to be renovated before
it is too late.
Hardly day passes that some one
who fought in the battle of ull Run, or
who had friends in it. does not call upon
Prof. Henry and ask to be shown over
the battle ground He has told the story
SO often that he reels it off like a ma
chine, and if you break in on him with a
question it confuses him, and he has to
to back and begin all over again. He
tells the story well though, and there
isn't much room for questions, for he
covers all the ground, if you will just
give him chance. He will point you
TO the exact spot on which Gen Jack
son stood with Stannard's S battery, when
Gen. Bee is said to have called to his
routed men, Form Form See There
stands jackson like a stone wallp
10 be sure Jackson's nephew had
secuted the story, and says it isn't true,
put Prof. Henry believes it firmly, and
has the spot SO marked He will show you
where Gen. Bee fell and was buried, and
Where Barnard fell when leading his
canny Scots up the plateau, and will
point you off in the distance where he
was buried, close by the house of Mr..
Dogan, who lives right there yet. He
Will show you the spot where Hampton
got his wound, and Jackson and Beau
regard and Imboden and Col. Fisher.
And where Col Johnston of Hampton s
Legion was killed.
He will point out to you the "Robin-
SON. house. and the "Stone" house,
down in the hollow by the stone bridge
and the sight of Sudley church, and the
old ford 1t is all historic, this land.
There is the old Chinn house too, off
among the trees; he will tell you that
loyal people live in it now. These houses
don't look much the worse for wear,
either. A little more moss has gathered
on them. Some patched-up places, where
impertinent shells bit big holes in them,
add to rather than detract from the pic
turesqueness.
The gently rounded hills are covered
with timber of good growth, and you
scarcely believe that at the meeting of the
armies thirty three and thirty-f four years
ago the face of the country was swept
almost clean of trees. Tall and slim and
stately stands the new forest, it's infancy
nnrtured by the blood of thousands OF
brave hearts, both those who wore the
blue and those who wore the gray Where
some of these trees stand Prof. Henry has
marked them as monuments to the mem
ory of Col. John Slocum and Maj Ballou
and brave Col. Haggarty of the Irish
regiment
He will point the exact spot where Coils.
Hunter, Heintzleman, Wilcox, Gilman,
Martin, Wood, Farnham, Corcoran an
Henry W. Slocum got their wounds. Sc
many brave men of this battle have be.
come famous since! He will point you
out the Leachman house in the distance,
one of the typical old southern homesteads,
where hospital was made for the sick
and wounded. And he will say that q
solid shot still shows up in the corner OF
it. He will tell you about how disease
carried off several of the boys in blue,
and they were buried down in the young
orchard, and time effaced every sign oi
graves.
And how, twenty-five years afterward,
some northern people, a lady, for one,
stopped at this hospital home for some
days, and got to telling them of a wayward
son who ran away from home, and the
last they heard of him he was in this
battle. They tell her Of the unfortunate
dead, buried down IN the orchard, and
suggest that in some such manner he1
son may have died. And then they all
talk and talk, till hope springs up in..the
mothers heart and hope grows into con.
I
viction. The old colored seryitor who
buried the dead is sent for and told to
| find the obliterated graves if possible.
He digs and digs, and digs for weeks till
almost the whole surface of the orchard,
| now full of grown trees, sis turned uI
with his spade. But one day he struck
an obstruction, and then another, and al
| last from the bodies taken up one was
| identified, and the precious dust sent te
rest in the ancestral cemetery, among
northern pines. and that is but one oi
| thousands of romances of the war.
| Fair and peaceful as the "Happy Val.
| ley" might be looks this battlefield
today, but if that fair country had
tongues for each soul set free here in the
two battles fought within thirteen
months of each other it could tale un.
fold that would rival that of Hamlet's
ghost.