The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-13

improper mOtlVe III gong to GellySDurB ito pick flaws and find fault" This pleases him and does not at all hurt me, and I have accomplished the purpose I had in view after. not before my visit to the field. That is to ascertain why Lees army had no recognition on the bat tie ground, for I did not know it till I got there. Long ago I purposed visiting the ground where I participated in any important battle, and Gettysburg and Manassas were the last visited. I have been to Chickamauga three times. to the crater Malvern Hill, Deep Bottom, Fort Harrison, the scene Of three engagements on the Darbytown road and Seven Pines.
 l went to Gettysburg with precisely the same motives which attracted me in vis- iting the other fields; desire to review the scenes of danger and trial-sometimes of triumph. Major Robbins was a brave and faithful soldier and can appreciate the feeling. He does not deny, but admits that the only work done by the govern ment in commemoration of the southern army Is where the line of battle was formed, about a mile from where the in- fantry fought, and says that this was the only sensible" plan to adopt.
 Now, l am not an expert, and can only judge of the mode of laying off battle field park from the standards with which l am acquainted. I have government maps of the grounds at Chickamauga and Gettysburg, and the engineers carefully designated the lines of both armies and parts of armies at different hours on different days, showing their most ad- vanced positions during the battle. These engineers decided 1t was sensible to do this-else, perhaps. they would have been subject to court martial I have seen pictures and cycloramas of battles and they portrayed the lines close together, the charging columns, the dead and wounded. What would be thought of a picture which placed the two armies over mile apart with the weapons in use in 1863? Necessarily, 1t would be a failure suppose the commission which laid off Chickamauga are sensible men. do not know that one stranger or a participant can go there and learn something of the details of the battle. I can give drec- tions to an intelligent boy of ten years, so that he can go without a guide or map. and place himself within three feet or the places at which 1 fought on both days, though nearly a mile apart. At Viniards, Heggs brigade has a marker and few feet in front are four granite monoliths inscribed with the names of four Georgia regiments, whose most ad- vanced position for that day are thus marked. Near Poe's field, a tablet shows a battery was taken and again just in it's front are the granite monuments showing the regiments which took it. Within 150 paces the finest battlefield monument have ever seen, erected by the state of Georgia, looks down on those monuments to her sons and right on the firing line, too. Tablets erected by the commission inform one what com mands were engaged there and at what hour of the respective days. The inscrip- tion on these tablets are cold history in the sense that no partiality is shown
 They might have been written by a Ger man or Russian seeking to tell the truth of history. On the spot where each gen. eral was killed on either side Is a pyramid of cannon balls with an appropriate in- scription. They are exactly alike and no partiality is shown. Now, if the Gettys- burg commission adopted the only "sensi- ble" course in failing to give the south- ern army recognition on the field, 1t fol- lows that the Chickamauga commission was very foolish, but I have never heard its wisdom questioned and great numbers from both sides have visited the field
 But, it is said there were two days fight ing at Gettysburg and the Union army acted on the defensive. At Chickamauga there were also two days fighting and the Union army also acted on the de- fensive. The latter field Is mostly an un- dulating plain with few clearings. and was covered in places with thickets so that the task-of making an intelligent object picture, so to speak, was vastly more difficult than at Gettysburg, where prominent hills. ridges and huge rocks had made natural park
 The Chickamauga commission having been formed long after that at Gettys- burg may have profited by the obvious failure to represent the latter field. I have never seen but four men who have visited Gettysburg since the war. MT N. Sewan of this place went there shortly after my visit and went over the field He says he saw but one reference to the southern army whilst there. That was a little iron tablet having on 1t Con federate Avenue. He was not in the battle and had no more interest in going where our line was formed, than he had in the place where we camped the night before. Mir. Sewall is quite intelligent and actually went nearly a thousand miles to see and did see the battle field and saw no mention of the southern army. Another was Virginian I met on the train whilst coming home. He profanely pronounced the work of the commission as the d-d one sided thing he ever saw. Such is the opinion of the other two one of whom was not in the battle.
 My only brother was in the 18th Ala bama. James J. Garrett was in the 44th and a number of my boyhood friends were in Company A, Fifteenth Alabama. the extreme right of our line. I saw them march into the battle until the smoke hid them from view. I spent an hour each of two days trying to find where the fourth Alabama fought and failed. and on meeting Major Robbins who also be- longed to the fourth at Devils Den he informed me that Captain Ward was wounded about two hundred yards to the right and Ihad been looking in every other direction. l could not locate the spot where the fifteenth Alabama fought tho In a general way I have always heard they tried to climb Little Round Ton. do not know today where the forty-fourth fought, whether to the right or left of Devils Den. I had heard before I went there that no monuments were permitted on the field to Confederates. but I ex- pected to find iron tablets as at Chica- mauga, having no experience with other fields. There are numbers of men in this city who were in Wilcoxs brigade, who perfectly understood that if there are no confederate tablets nearer than Semi nary Ridge, it would afford very little Inf fnf T1af ftnrn