Year: 1864

LETTER FROM HUNTSVILLE.
Special correspondence or the Nashville Union)


HUNTSVILLE, Ala, June 4, lS64-Bacl
to Huntsville-we left it for home with
pleasing recollections of its beauty and
grandeur, with many "reminiscences of
hours of enjoyment spent amid the
hills and wales of Northern Alabama
We left it with sigh of regret, having
a feeling of strong sympathy with Cow
per when he wished for


A lodge in some vast Wilderness.


But then it was bearable, we were going
home. To the veteran soldier there is
a peculiar charm in the word. The
very mention of it is sufficient 10 awak-
en- the most thrilling recollections.
No scenes are so lovely as the haunts of
childhood; no songs so sweet as those
we heard among the boughs that shade
the parents dwelling; no voice so
touchingly musical as that which sooth-
ed our early grief Temporary alb
sence only enhances the charms of
home. 1t is said that the Swiss Geuer-
al, who leads his army into a foreign
land, must not suffer the sweet airs of
Switzerland to be sung in the hearing
of his soldiers, for at the thrilling
sound, they would leave the camp and
fly away to their own splendid land of
lake, rock, cataract and mountain. The
mariner amid the icebergs of Northern
seas, or breathing the spring gales of
the ever green isles, or coasting the
shore OF the Pacific, though the hand
of time may have blanched his raven
locks, and care have heaped deep fur
rows upon his youthful brow, yet upon
some summer evening, as he looks out
upon the sun sinking behind the west
ern wave, he will think of home, and
his heart will yearn for the land Of early
days. The Exile of Erin, in listening
to the splendid orations of his cherish
ed Meagher (whose eloquence is the
very music of freedom) forgets the des-
olations of the trampied land of his fa-
theirs, as he looks around to the glad
day when he will stand under Ireland :
immortal green.


Harkl


am sitting on the style, Mary,


Where we sat side by side,


Hark what does he see2


And the springing corn, and the bright


May morn,


When first you were nay bride.


Be it ever so humble, there's no place


like home


l have already chronicled in the col
umns of the Union my opinion of the
lordly residences, the handsome streets
shaded by grand avenue Of trees, the
fine churches, the magnificent spring,
maintaining its perpetual flow day and
night, in the freezing cold of winter
and in the parching drought of sum
mer, supplying daily the wants of seve-
raj thousand thirsty guests.


I have recorded the unselfsh deVo-
ton of worthy men who would have
welcomed death rather than be false to
the land of Washington. wrote of
Jere Clemens, an heroic patriot and
brilliant lawyer, in after years the er-
rors of the Senator will be forgotten in
admiration for his present sublime-de-
Yotion to God and liberty; of Nick
Davis, a gallant opponent of secession,
who after a hundred votes, resolutely
refused to vote for the Davis despotism
of Donegan, the wealthiest man in the
place. This proud old Irishman was
peremptorily ordered to take the oath
of allegiance to the new regime, his re-
ply was characteristic would see
your so-called Government in the north
east corner of Nova Scotia, before de-
sert the Union Of our fathers; my oath
of citizenship was not to Alabama but
TO the United States. OF Father Tracy,
the glorious priest, whose splendid
LOYALTY won the admiration of all; of
Judge Lane, the old man eloquent, who
dehantly shook the banners of the ma
ton in the face of the conspirators.


Patriots, All hail Your deeds will
be remembered by grateful people,
and your names will be emblazoned in
the pantheon of Freedoms champions


Three years ago the scenery in and
around Huntsville was beautiful and
grand; then the hand of war had not
left its desolsting blight upon the
noblest works of art 1t Is true the
ever glorious hills are here, and the
Cumberland Mountains, with the color
ed brilliancy of a. chain of gems. still
towers above them all All that the
hand of God has done through count
less ages it still here. But the works of
man in embellishing, softening, and
giving variety to the landscape, have
departed


The view from the Methodist Female
College is transporting. The eye Of the
observer gazes with rapture upon de
lightful and well cultivated country,