The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-09-18
SOLDIERS BUDGET.
Virginia Revisited After Thirty
Years.-.NO. 1.
BY G. b. PUTNAM, MONTPELIER, VT.

That one should have an intense
yearning to revisit the peaceful scenes
of his childhood after enduring the buff
lettings of the world for generation, is
Ineligible; but what shall we say of
one who desires to look again upon the
spots almost the only recollections OF
which are of shot and shell, the wild
rebel yell, the means of the dying, and
the thousand nameless terrors which
are inseparable from the battle .feldp
Yet for years that has been one of my
most cherished desires. That desire
has now been satiated, in measure, by
the making of a siXteen-day trip through
Virginia, revisiting, 80 far as time and
means would permit, some of the more
famous battle.felds. The purpose of
this article, and of those which may fol-
low, is to hold up to the view of my
soldier comrades the picture as it
looked to me, contrasting II with the
more sombre hues of the picture of
thirty and more years ago. The limit
ations of space forbid doing more than
giving glimpses of the rapidly-moving
scenes; so, dismissing in a word the
delights of travel by beautiful Lakes
Champlain and George, the majestic
Hudson, and the now placid but some
times boisterous Atlantic, let the reader
pass with me through the gateway to
the sea, guarded by the twin capes
Charles and Henry, and enter
HAMPTON ROADS,
broad and sheltered estuary in which,
and the contributory James and Eliza
LAkL ~,x h. .,,,n 80 H..
could safely ride. What vista opens!
Distant Old Point Comfort and the frown-
ing ramparts of Fortress Monroe on the
right, busy Norfolk and Portsmouth on
the left. Here, there, everywhere, the
whte-winged messengers of commerce.,
riding at anchor or gliding noiselessly
by on their peaceful errands, carrying
the semi-tropical products of Virginia
to the less favored regions of earth.
All is peace and apparent prosperity.
1t was not always thus. Only thirty or
thirty-four years ago the breezes filed
the sails of vessels bearing the " horrid
enginery of war" and supplies for the
support of the then largest and finest
army the world ever saw. am not at
tempting to write history. l write only
as a soldier to soldiers, and 80 need not
relate in detail the events of those days.
They are literally burned into your
memories by the fires generated on the
many fields of battle.
When Christopher Newport, in 1907,
passed between the capes, after being
long tossed by the ocean waves in
vessel that would now scarcely be useo
on an inland river, and sighted safe an
chorage at what is now historic ground
he named it, and most appropriately,
Point Comfort. That name it bore I'm
til, later, similar projection was dis
covered up Chesapeake Bay, and ais
named Point Comfort. To distinguish
the one from the other, this of which |
write came to be known as
OLD POINT COMFORT.
Were one up in balloon sufficient
height to discern the confguration OF
the land and yet too high to distinguish
particular objects, Old Point would look
like "gob of mud on the end of
shingle. 1t is a peninsula containing
perhaps $50 acres, of which Fortres
Monroe covers so. Landing at the gov
eminent wharf, Hygeia Hotel is the
first object likely to attract the eye.
An inn is an inn, a tavern is a tavern,
and hotel is hotel-all pretty much
the same thing in reality, though pre-
tentious inn-keepers are prone to de-
nominate their house of entertainme Mt
a" hotel." But the Hygeia is hotel
not Of to-day, or of yesterday, but of
long years agone, "befo' de wah." In
those days of cid, at this hotel the Vir-
ginia planters (the F. F. VS., after
having sold the products of their planta
tions-not the traditional corn, wine
and oil, but the material corn, tobacco
and "garden truck Leaving their
overseers at home to practice miscege-
nation, were wont to meet, talk politics,
and "cuss" the Yankee. Many a
statesman of the period when Virginia
dominated the nation was under that
roof nursed, and bred, and indoctri-
mated with the beauties of the I" divine
institution" Then, to be Virginia
gentleman was to be the salt of the
earth. There the Virginia gentleman,
on those wide verandas or in the dance
hall, led the Virginia lady-beautified
and adorned by all the arts of the dress
maker of that day-in the stately dances
of the period. Those old walls, could
they speak, could tell many tale of
love, and intrigue, and, alas! of
schemes whose elimination would have
i0hV Jul uatioh III tWniu' Dut IL Wac
not to be.
The Hygeia of to-day is the Hygeia Of
old, plus the addition of new front and
rear-a curious minging of the archaic
and the fin de steele. Go into the Office
the commercial room, the billiard room
or the dining-room, you see the mod
ern hotel of the city; go into your sleep
ing apartment, you find the low-posteC
rooms and all the appointments OF i
byegone day. Just across the street il
the new Chamberlin Hotel (soon t.
be open to the public, built of ston,
and brick, and up-to-date in every way
But | must hasten to give my view
and impressions of what was, to me
the chief charm of this locality,
FORTRESS MONROE.
In the early days of '61, when for
E.