America Volume I Part 4

The water power of the James River supplies huge flour mills and other factories, and alongside the stream are the extensive Tredegar Iron Works at the base of Gamble Hill, one of the largest iron and steel works in the Southern States. Here were made the Confederate cannon, shot and sh.e.l.l, and the primitive armor plates for their few wars.h.i.+ps.

This hill also overlooks the James River and Kanawha Ca.n.a.l, an interior water way going westward beyond the Alleghenies. In mid-river above is Belle Isle, a broad, flat island, which during the war was a place of imprisonment for private soldiers, but upon it is now an iron mill. Along the lower river are the wharves and s.h.i.+pping, in the section called Rocketts, and here are also the tobacco storehouses and factories, the chief Richmond industry, for it is the world's leading tobacco mart, receiving and distributing most of the product of the rich soils of Virginia, Kentucky and Carolina. The pungent odor generally pervades the town, for whichever way the wind may blow it wafts the perfume of a tobacco or cigarette factory. The Tobacco Exchange is the business centre, and this industry is of the first importance. The modern-built City Hall, adjacent to the Capitol Park, is one of Richmond's finest buildings.

In the western suburbs, upon the river bank, and in a lovely position, is the famous Hollywood Cemetery, the terraced sides of its ravines being occupied by mausoleums and graves, while in front the rus.h.i.+ng rapids roar a requiem for the dead. The foliage is luxuriant; and, while occupying only about eighty acres, it is a most beautiful burial-place. Here are interred two Virginia Presidents--James Monroe and John Tyler. An elaborate monument marks the former, and a magnificent tree is planted at Tyler's grave--his daughter, buried nearby, having for a monument a tasteful figure of the Virgin. The Hollywood Cemetery a.s.sociation is to place a monument on Tyler's grave. Here are also buried Confederate Generals A. P. Hill, J. E. B.

Stuart, the das.h.i.+ng cavalryman, and George E. Pickett, who led the desperate Confederate charge of the Virginia Division at Gettysburg.

It also contains the graves of the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke; Commodore Maury, the navigator; Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia when the State seceded, and Thomas Ritchie, long editor of the _Richmond Enquirer_, a most powerful writer and political leader in the early part of the nineteenth century, who is regarded in Virginia as the "Father of the Democratic Party." There are crowded into this cemetery in one place twelve thousand graves of Confederate soldiers, and in the centre of the ghastly plot there rises a huge stone pyramid, ninety feet high, erected as a memorial by the Southern women. Vines overrunning it almost conceal the rough joints of the stones. No name is upon it, for it was built as a monument for the unnamed dead. On three sides are inscriptions; on one "To the Confederate Dead;" on another "Memoria in aeterna," and on a third "Numini et Patriae Asto." As they fell on the adjacent battlefields or died in the hospitals, unclaimed, they were brought here and buried in rows. In one urgent, terrible season, time not being given to prepare separate graves, the bodies were interred on the hillside in long trenches. This sombre pyramid and its immediate surroundings are impressive memorials of the great war. From any of the Richmond hills can be seen other grim mementos. Almost all the present city parks were then army hospitals or cemeteries; all the chief highways lead out to battlefields, and most of them in the suburbs are bordered with the graves of the dead of both armies. All around the compa.s.s the outlook is upon battlefields, and on all sides but the north upon cemeteries.

McCLELLAN'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND.

The great memory of Richmond for all time will be of the Civil War, when for three years battles raged around it. The first movement against the city was McClellan's siege in 1862, and the environs show abundant remains of the forts, redoubts and long lines of earthworks by which the Confederate Capital was so gallantly defended. The earliest attack was by Union gunboats in May, 1862, against the batteries defending Drewry's Bluff on James River, seven miles below the town, the defensive works being so strong that little impression was made, but enough was learned to prevent any subsequent naval attack there. McClellan came up the Peninsula between James and York Rivers, approached Richmond from the east, and extended his army around to the north, enveloping it upon a line which was the arc of a circle, from seven miles east to five miles north of the city. The Chickahominy flows through a broad and swampy depression in the table-land north and east of Richmond, bordered by meadows, fens and thickets of underbrush. It thus divided McClellan's investing army, and the first great battle near Richmond was begun by the Confederates, who took advantage of a heavy rain late in May which had swollen the river and swamps. They fell upon the Union left wing on May 31st, and the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks, in which the losses were ten thousand men, was fought southwest of the Chickahominy.

General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate Commander, was badly wounded, and General Lee succeeded him, continuing in command until the war closed. Extensive cemeteries now mark this battlefield among the swamps. During June the heat and malaria filled McClellan's hospitals with fever cases, and he had to move the greater portion of his army to higher ground north of the Chickahominy, where he erected protective earthworks. These still exist, with the formidable ranges of opposing Confederate works on the south side of the river.

One of the most brilliant Confederate movements of the war followed.

McClellan's right wing stretched around to the village of Mechanicsville, five miles north of Richmond, and Lee determined to overwhelm this wing. Stonewall Jackson had been driving the Union troops out of the Shenandoah Valley northwest of Richmond, and late in June began a combined movement with Lee's army at Richmond. Longstreet and Hill crossed the Chickahominy above Mechanicsville and attacked the Union right, beginning the "Seven Days' Battles," lasting from June 25 to July 1, 1862. Jackson was to have got down the same day from the Shenandoah Valley, but his march was delayed, and this gave time for McClellan to withdraw his wing and extensive baggage trains across the swamps below, the stubborn defense by his rear guards making the fierce conflict of Gaines' Mill, on the second day, during which Jackson, coming from the northward and joining the others, compelled the Union lines to change front, the contest thus turning into the first battle of Cold Harbor, in which the rear held their ground until the retreat was completed across the Chickahominy, and withdrew, destroying roads and bridges behind them. McClellan then made a further retreat, for which these obstructive tactics gave time, across the White Oak Swamp down the river, moving on a single road, leading to higher ground, which was held by hasty defenses. The Confederate attacks upon this new line made the battles of Savage Station, Charles City Cross Roads, and Frazier's Farm, the pursuit being checked long enough to permit another retreat and the formation of lines of defense on Malvern Hill, fifteen miles southeast of Richmond, adjoining James River. The Confederates again attacked, but met a disastrous check; and, wearied by a week of battles and marches, they then desisted, closing the seven days' fighting, in which both sides were worn out, and the losses were forty thousand men.

McClellan's army, having retreated from around Richmond, afterwards withdrew farther down James River to Harrison's Landing, and here they rested. Subsequently they were removed by vessels to Was.h.i.+ngton for the later campaign which resulted in the second battle of Bull Run, McClellan being superseded for a brief period by Pope. This brilliant Confederate movement against McClellan raised the siege and relieved Richmond, emboldening them to make their subsequent aggressive campaigns across the Potomac, which were checked at Antietam and at Gettysburg.

GRANT'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND.

There were no Union attacks directly against Richmond in 1863. The second great movement upon the Confederate Capital began in June, 1864, when Grant came down through the Wilderness, as already described, and attacked the Confederates at Cold Harbor. Lee was entrenched there in almost the same defensive position occupied by McClellan's rear when protecting his retreat across the Chickahominy two years before. Grant made little impression, but in a brief and b.l.o.o.d.y battle lost fifteen thousand men. He then turned aside from this almost impregnable position to the northeast of Richmond, went south to the James River, and, crossing over, started a new attack from a different quarter. This removed the seat of war to the south of Richmond, and in September, 1864, General Butler's Unionist troops from Bermuda Hundred captured Fort Harrison, a strong work on the northeast side of the James, opposite Drewry's Bluff, and not far from Malvern Hill. The campaign then became one of stubborn persistence.

Throughout the autumn and winter Grant gradually spread his lines westward around Petersburg, so that the later movements were more a siege of that city than of Richmond. City Point, at the mouth of the Appomattox, flowing out from Petersburg to the James, became his base of supplies. As the Union lines were extended steadily westward, one railway after another, leading from the far South up to Petersburg and Richmond, was cut off, and Lee was ultimately starved out, forcing the abandonment of Petersburg in the early spring of 1865, and the evacuation of Richmond on April 3d, with the retreat of Lee westward, and the final surrender at Appomattox six days later, causing the downfall of the Confederacy, and ending the war.

From the top of Libby Hill in Richmond the route is still pointed out by which the swiftly moving Union troops, after that fateful Sunday of the evacuation, advanced over the level lands from Petersburg towards the burning city. The bridges across the James were burnt, and acres of buildings in the business section were in flames when they came to the river bank and found that the greater portion of the affrighted people had fled. The Yankees quickly laid a pontoon bridge, crossed to Shockoe Hill, rushed up to the Capitol, and raised the Union "Stars and Stripes" on the roof, replacing the Confederate "Stars and Bars."

Then they went vigorously to work putting out the fires, and the new infusion of life given the city by its baptism of blood imparted an energy which has not only restored it, but has given it an era of great prosperity. It is a curious fact that the nearest approach any Northern troops made to Richmond during the progress of the war was in March, 1864. A precursor to Grant's march through the Wilderness was a das.h.i.+ng cavalry raid from the northward, the troopers crossing the Chickahominy, then unguarded, and advancing to a point about one mile from the city limits. Here they met some resistance, and, learning of defensive works farther ahead, General Kilpatrick, who commanded the raiders, retreated. General Lee's troops were then fifty miles away from Richmond, guarding the lines along the Rappahannock.

PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.

In the great strategic movements of the opposing armies of the Civil War they repeatedly traversed a large part of Virginia and Maryland to the northwest of the route between Was.h.i.+ngton and Richmond. Like the general coastal formation east of the Alleghenies, Virginia rises into successive ridges parallel with the mountains. The first range of low broken hills stretching southwest from the Potomac are called in different parts the Kittoctin, Bull Run and other mountains extending down to the Carolina boundary. From these, what is known as the Piedmont district stretches all across the State, and has a width of about twenty-five miles to the base of the Blue Ridge, being a succession of picturesque valleys and rolling lands, the general elevation gradually increasing towards the northwest, where it is bordered by the towering Blue Ridge and its many spurs and plateaus, with pa.s.sages through at various gaps. The Blue Ridge is elevated about fifteen hundred feet at the Potomac, but Mount Marshall, at Front Royal, rises nearly thirty-four hundred feet, and the Peaks of Otter, farther southwest, are much higher. Beyond this is the great Appalachian Valley, which stretches from New England to Alabama, the section here being known as the "Valley of Virginia," and its northern portion as the Shenandoah Valley. This is a belt of rolling country, with many hills and vales, diversified by streams that wind among the hillsides, and having a varying breadth of ten to fifty miles in different parts. Beyond it, to the northwest, are the main Allegheny Mountain ranges. The opposing troops marched and fought over all this country in connection with the greater military movements, and here was the special theatre of Stonewall Jackson's exploits and his wonderful marches and quick manoeuvres which made his troops proudly style themselves his "foot cavalry." The memory of Jackson is cherished by the Southern people more than that of any other of their leaders in the Civil War, and his brilliant exploits and inopportune death have made him their special hero.

In the Piedmont region, to the southeast and in front of the Blue Ridge, are the towns of Leesburg, Mana.s.sas, Warrenton, Culpepper, Orange and Charlottesville, all well known in connection with the opposing military movements. Charlottesville, about sixty-five miles northwest of Richmond, in a beautiful situation, was an important Confederate base of supplies. Here are now about six thousand people, and the town has its chief fame as the seat of the University of Virginia and the home of Thomas Jefferson. The University was founded mainly through the exertions of Jefferson, and has some five hundred students. Its buildings are a mile out of town, and the original ones were constructed from Jefferson's designs and under his supervision, the chief being the Rotunda, recently rebuilt, and the modern structures for a Museum of Natural History and an Observatory.

Jefferson was proud of this inst.i.tution, and in the inscription which he prepared for his tomb described himself as the "author of the Declaration of Independence, and of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia." Among its most famous students was Edgar Allan Poe, and a fine bronze bust of him was unveiled at the University in 1899, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. Thomas Jefferson lived at Monticello, the old house being an interesting specimen of early Virginia architecture, and standing on a hill southeast of the town. Here he died just fifty years after the Declaration was promulgated, July 4, 1826, and he is buried in the family graveyard near the house.

Monticello is now celebrated for its native wines.

The Shenandoah Valley during the war was noted for the way in which the opposing forces chased each other up and down, with repeated severe battles. Here was fought, in June, 1862, the battle of Cross Keys, near the forks of the Shenandoah. Jackson had previously retreated up the Valley, but by a series of brilliant movements, begun after the battle of Fair Oaks before Richmond, he was able to meet and defeat in detail the various armies under Banks, Fremont, McDowell and s.h.i.+elds, thus managing to foil or hold in check seventy thousand men, while his own troops were never more than twenty thousand. Then coming southward out of the Valley, he joined in turning McClellan's right wing before Richmond at the end of June, afterwards following up Banks in August, and defeating him at Cedar Mountain, near Culpepper; then joining in the defeat of Pope at the second battle of Bull Run; then capturing Harper's Ferry and eleven thousand men September 15th, and finally taking part in the battle of Antietam two days later. When Grant began his siege of Richmond after the second battle of Cold Harbor, in 1864, he made General Sheridan commander of the troops in the Shenandoah Valley, and fortune turned. Sheridan opposed Early, and in September and October had a series of brilliant victories, the last one at Cedar Creek, where he turned a rout into a victory by his prompt movements. Sheridan had been in Was.h.i.+ngton, and came to Winchester, "twenty miles away," where he heard "the terrible grumble and rumble and roar" of the battle, and made his noted ride, the exploit being so conspicuous that he received the thanks of Congress.

Early in 1865 he made a cavalry raid from Winchester, in the Valley, down to the westward of Richmond, around Lee's lines, and rejoined the army at Petersburg, having destroyed the James River and Kanawha Ca.n.a.l and cut various important railway connections in the Confederate rear.

The Shenandoah Valley to-day is very much in its primitive condition of agriculture, but has been opened up by railway connections which develop its resources, and its great present attraction is the Cave of Luray. This cavern is about five miles from the Blue Ridge, and some distance southwest of Front Royal. It is a compact cavern, well lighted by electricity, and is more completely and profusely decorated with stalact.i.tes and stalagmites than any other in the world. Some of the chambers are very imposing, and all the more important formations have been appropriately named. The scenery of the neighborhood is picturesque, and the cavern has many visitors.

THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBURG.

In considering the great theatre of the Civil War, attention is naturally directed to the chief contest of all, and the turning-point of the rebellion, the battle of Gettysburg, fought at the beginning of July, 1863. After the victory at Chancellorsville in May the Confederates determined to carry the war northward into the enemy's country. Gettysburg is seven miles north of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and over forty miles from the Potomac River. To the westward is the long curving range of the South Mountain, and beyond this the great Appalachian Valley, a continuation of the Shenandoah Valley, crossing Central Pennsylvania in a curve, and here called the c.u.mberland Valley. In the latter are two prominent towns, Chambersburg in Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown in Maryland, on the Potomac. General Lee, in preparation for the march northward, gathered nearly ninety thousand men at Culpepper in Virginia, including Stuart's cavalry force of ten thousand. General Hooker's Union army, which had withdrawn across the Rappahannock after Chancellorsville, was then encamped opposite Fredericksburg, and one hundred and fifty miles south of Gettysburg. Lee started northward across the Potomac, but Hooker did not discover it for some days, and then rapidly followed.

The Confederates crossed between June 22d and 25th, and concentrated at Hagerstown, in the c.u.mberland Valley, up which they made a rapid march, overrunning the entire valley to the Susquehanna River, and appearing opposite Harrisburg and Columbia. Hooker, being late in movement, crossed the Potomac lower down than Lee, on June 28th, thus making a northern race, up the curving valleys, with Lee in advance, but on the longer route of the outer circle. There was a garrison of ten thousand men at Harper's Ferry on the Potomac, and Hooker asked that they be added to his army; but the War Department declined, and Hooker immediately resigned, being succeeded by General George G.

Meade, who thus on the eve of the battle became the Union commander.

There are two parallel ridges bordering the plain on which Gettysburg stands. The long Seminary Ridge, stretching from north to south about a mile west of the town, gets its name from the Lutheran Theological Seminary standing upon it; and the Cemetery Ridge to the south of the town, which partly stretches up its slopes, has on its northern flat-topped hill the village cemetery, wherein the princ.i.p.al grave then was that of James Gettys, after whom the place was named. There is an outlying eminence called Culp's Hill farther to the east, making, with the Cemetery Ridge, a formation bent around much like a fish-hook, with the graveyard at the bend and Culp's Hill at the barb, while far down at the southern end of the long straight shank, as the ridge extends for two miles away, with an intervening rocky gorge called the Devil's Den, there are two peaks, formed of tree-covered crags, known as the Little Round Top and the Big Round Top. These long parallel ridges, with the intervale and the country immediately around them, are the battlefield, which the topographical configuration well displays. It covers about twenty-five square miles, and lies mainly southwest of the town.

It was on June 28th that General Meade unexpectedly a.s.sumed command of the Union army, and he was then near the Potomac. General Ewell with the Confederate advance guard had gone up the c.u.mberland Valley as far as Carlisle, and his troopers were threatening Harrisburg. n.o.body had opposed them, and the Confederate main body, which had got much ahead of Hooker, was at Chambersburg. Lee being far from his base, and hearing of the Union pursuit, then determined to face about and cripple his pursuers, fixing upon Gettysburg as the point of concentration. He ordered Ewell to march south from Carlisle, and the other commanders east from Chambersburg through the mountain pa.s.ses.

The Union cavalry advance under General Buford reached Gettysburg on June 30th, ahead of the Confederates, and Meade's army was then stretched over the ground for more than forty miles back to the Potomac, all coming forward by forced marches. As soon as Meade became aware of Lee's changed tactics he concluded that this extended formation was too risky, and decided to concentrate in a strong position upon the Pipe Creek hills in Maryland, about fifteen miles south of Gettysburg, and issued the necessary orders. Thus the battle opened, with each army executing a movement for concentration.

THE GREAT BATTLE.

The battle began on July 1st, the Union Cavalry, which had gone out to the west and north of Gettysburg, becoming engaged with the Confederate advance approaching the town from the pa.s.ses through the South Mountain. The cavalry, at first victorious, was soon overwhelmed by superior numbers, and infantry supports arrived, under General Reynolds; but he was killed, and they were all driven back and through Gettysburg to the cemetery and Culp's Hill, which were manned by fresh troops that had come up. Meade was then at Pipe Creek, laying out a defensive line, but when he heard of Reynolds' death and the defeat, he sent General Hanc.o.c.k forward to take command, who decided that the Cemetery Ridge was the place to give battle. Ewell had in the meantime extended the Confederate left wing around to the east of Culp's Hill and held Gettysburg, but active operations were suspended, and the night was availed of by both sides to get their forces up and into position, which was mainly accomplished by morning.

When the second day, July 2d, opened, the armies confronted each other in line of battle. The Union troops were along the Cemetery Ridge and the Confederates upon the Seminary Ridge, across the intervale to the west, their lines also stretching around through Gettysburg to the north of the cemetery, and two miles east along the base of Culp's Hill. In the long intervening valley, and in the ravines and upon the slopes of the Cemetery Ridge and Culp's Hill, the main battle was fought. The attack began by General Longstreet advancing against the two Round Tops, but after a b.l.o.o.d.y contest he was repulsed. General Sickles, who held the line to the south of the Little Round Top, then thought he could improve his position by advancing a half-mile into the valley towards the Seminary Ridge, thus making a broken Union line, with a portion dangerously thrust forward. The enemy soon took advantage of this, and fell upon Sickles, front and flank, almost overwhelming his line in the "Peach Orchard," and driving it back to the adjacent "Wheat Field." Reinforcements were quickly poured in, and there was a hot conflict, Sickles being seriously wounded and his troops almost cut to pieces. About the same time Ewell made a terrific charge out of Gettysburg upon the Cemetery and Culp's Hill, with the "Louisiana Tigers" and other troops, effecting a lodgement, although the defending soldiers wrought great havoc by a heavy cannonade. The Union gunners on Little Round Top ultimately cleared the "Wheat Field," and then the combatants rested. Lee was much inspirited by his successes, and determined to renew the attack next morning.

Upon the third and last day, July 3d, General Meade opened the combat early in the morning by driving out Ewell's forces, who had effected a lodgement on Culp's Hill. General Lee did not learn of this, but he was full of the idea that both the Union centre and right wing had been weakened the previous day, and during the night he planned an attack in front, to be accompanied by a cavalry movement around the Union right to a.s.sail the rear, thus following up Ewell's supposed advantage. To give Stuart with the cavalry time to get around to the rear, the front attack was not made until afternoon. During the morning each side got cannon into position, Lee having one hundred and twenty guns along Seminary Ridge, and Meade eighty in the Cemetery and southward, along a low, irregular stone pile, forming a sort of rude wall bordering the road leading from Gettysburg south to Taneytown, in Maryland. The action began about one o'clock in the afternoon, when the Confederates opened fire, and the most terrific artillery duel of the war took place across the intervening valley, six guns being discharged every second. The troops suffered little, as they kept down in the ground, but several Union guns were dismounted. After two hours deafening cannonade Lee ordered his grand attack, the celebrated charge by General Pickett, a force of fourteen thousand men with brigade front advancing across the valley. They marched swiftly, and had a mile to go, but before they were half-way across all the available Union guns had been trained upon them. Their attack was directed at an umbrella-shaped clump of trees on the Cemetery Ridge at a low place where the rude stone wall made an angle, with its point outside. General Hanc.o.c.k commanded this portion of the Union line. The grape and canister of the Union cannonade ploughed furrows through Pickett's ranks, and when his column got within three hundred yards, Hanc.o.c.k opened musketry fire with terrible effect. Thousands fell, and the brigades broke in disorder; but the advance, headed by General Armistead on foot, continued, and about one hundred and fifty men leaped over the stone piles at the angle to capture the Union guns.

Lieutenant Cus.h.i.+ng, mortally wounded in both thighs, ran his last serviceable gun towards the wall, and shouting to his commander, "Webb, I will give them one more shot!" he fired the gun and died.

Armistead put his hand on the cannon, waved his sword, and called out, "Give them the cold steel, boys!" then, pierced by bullets, he fell dead alongside of Cus.h.i.+ng. Both lay near the clump of trees, about thirty yards inside the wall, their corpses marking the farthest point to which Pickett's advance penetrated. There was a hand to hand conflict; Webb was wounded, and also Hanc.o.c.k, and the slaughter was dreadful. The Confederates were overwhelmed, and not one-fourth of the gallant charging column, composed of the flower of the Virginia troops, escaped, the remnant retreating in disorder. Stuart's cavalry failed to cooperate as intended, having met the Union cavalry about four miles to the east of Gettysburg, and the conflict ensuing prevented their attacking the Union rear. After Pickett's retreat there was a general Union advance, closing the combat.

The point within the angle of the stone wall where Cus.h.i.+ng and Armistead fell has been commemorated by what is known as the "High-Water Mark Monument," for it was placed at the point reached by the top of the flood-tide of the rebellion, as afterwards there was a steady ebb. During the night of July 3d Lee began a retreat, and aided by heavy rains, usually following great battles, the Confederates next day withdrew through the mountain pa.s.ses towards Hagerstown, and afterwards escaped across the Potomac. Upon the day of Lee's retreat, Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant, and these two events began the Confederacy's downfall. There were engaged in the battle of Gettysburg about eighty thousand men on each side, the Union army having three hundred and thirty-nine cannon and the Confederates two hundred and ninety-three. It was the largest battle of the Civil War in the actual numbers engaged, and one of the most hotly contested. The Union loss was twenty-three thousand and three killed, wounded and prisoners, and the Confederate loss twenty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight.

THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS.

The battlefield of Gettysburg is better marked, both topographically and by monuments, than probably any other battlefield in the world.

Over a million dollars have been expended on the grounds and monuments. The "Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial a.s.sociation,"

representing the soldiers engaged, has marked all the important points, and the tracts along the lines, over four hundred and fifty acres, have been acquired, so as to thoroughly preserve all the landmarks where the most important movements were executed. There are some five hundred monuments upon the field, placed with the utmost care in the exact localities, and standing in woods or on open ground, by the roadsides, on stony heights and ridges in gardens, and of all designs, executed in bronze, marble, granite, on boulders and otherwise. Marking-posts also designate the positions of the various organizations in the opposing armies. To the north and west of Gettysburg is the scene of the first day's contest, but the more interesting part is to the southward. Ascending the Cemetery Hill, there is pa.s.sed, by the roadside, the house of Jenny Wade, the only woman killed in the battle, accidentally shot while baking bread. The rounded Cemetery Hill is an elevated and strong position having many monuments, and here, alongside the little village graveyard, the Government established a National Cemetery of seventeen acres, where thirty-five hundred and seventy-two soldiers are buried, over a thousand being the unknown dead. A magnificent battle monument is here erected, surmounted by a statue of Liberty, and at the base of the shaft having figures of War, History, Peace and Plenty. This charming spot was the centre of the Union line, then a rough, rocky hill. The cemetery was dedicated in November, 1863, Edward Everett delivering the oration, and the monument on July 1, 1869. At the cemetery dedication President Lincoln made the famous "twenty-line address"

which is regarded as the most immortal utterance of the martyr President, and has become an American cla.s.sic. The British _Westminster Review_ described it as an oration having but one equal, in that p.r.o.nounced upon those who fell during the first year of the Peloponnesian War, and as being its superior, because "natural, fuller of feeling, more touching and pathetic, and we know with an absolute certainty that it was really delivered." The President was requested to say a few words by way of dedication, and drawing from his pocket a crumpled piece of paper on which he had written some notes, he spoke as follows:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so n.o.bly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain--that the nation shall, under G.o.d, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

A mile across the valley the Lutheran Seminary is seen, the most conspicuous landmark of the Confederate line. To the southeast from the cemetery is Culp's Hill, strewn with rocks and boulders and covered with trees. The Emmettsburg road goes southward down the valley, gradually diverging from the Union line, and crossing the fields that were the battleground on the second and third days. It is bordered by numerous monuments, some of great merit, and leads to the "Peach Orchard," where the line bends sharply back. Peach trees are replanted here as the old ones fall. The "Wheat Field" is alongside, now gra.s.s-grown. Beyond it the surface goes down among the crags and broken stones of the "Devil's Den," a ravine through which flows a stream, coming from the orchard and wheat field, and separating them from the rocky "Round Tops," the sandstone cliffs of the "Little Round Top" rising high above the ravine. The fields sloping to the stream above the Den are known as the "Valley of Death." Among these rocks there are many monuments, made of the boulders that are so numerous. A toilsome path mounts the "Big Round Top" beyond, and an Observatory on the summit gives a good view over almost the entire battlefield. This summit, more than three miles south of Gettysburg, has tall timber, preserved as it was in the battle. There are cannon surmounting the "Round Tops," representing the batteries in action. Across the valley to the west is the long fringe of timber that masked the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge. A picnic-ground, with access by railway, is located alongside the "Round Tops." The lines of breastworks are maintained, and upon the lower ground, not far away, are preserved the rough stone walls, and to the northward is the little umbrella-shaped grove of trees at which Pickett's charge was directed. The Twentieth Ma.s.sachusetts regiment brought here a huge conglomerate boulder from New England and set it up as their monument, their Colonel, Paul Revere, being killed in the battle.

There was no fighting along the Confederate line on Seminary Ridge until the scene of the first day's conflict is reached, to the northwest of Gettysburg. Here is marked where General Reynolds fell, just within a grove of trees, and a fine equestrian statue of him has been erected on the field. From his untimely death, Reynolds is regarded as the special Union hero of the battle, as Armistead was the Southern. Nearby a spirited statue, the "Ma.s.sachusetts Color-Bearer,"

holds aloft the flag of the Thirteenth Ma.s.sachusetts regiment, standing upon a slope, thus marking the spot where he fell at the opening of the conflict. Such is the broad and impressive scene of one of the leading battles of the world, and the greatest ever fought in America. But happily the pa.s.sions which caused it have been stilled, and the combatants are now again united in their patriotic devotion to a common country. As Longfellow solemnly sounds his invocation in the _Building of the s.h.i.+p_, so now do all the people in the reunited Union:

"Thus too, sail on, O s.h.i.+p of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!"

THE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE.

III.

THE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE.

Delaware Bay--Cape May--Cape Henlopen--Delaware Breakwater--Maurice River Cove--The Pea Patch--Newcastle --Mason and Dixon's Line--Fort Christina--Wilmington-- The Duponts--Brandywine--William Penn--West Jersey-- Pennsylvania--Upland--The s.h.i.+p "Welcome"--Philadelphia --Shackamaxon--The Lenni Lenapes--The City Hall-- Independence Hall--Benjamin Franklin--Betsy Ross and the American Flag--Stephen Girard--Girard College--Notable Charities and Buildings--Christ Church--Old Swedes' Church --Longfellow's Evangeline--Cathedral of St. Peter and St.

Paul--University of Pennsylvania--City of Homes--John Bartram and his Garden--Fairmount Park--Laurel Hill-- Wissahickon Creek--Germantown--Johannes Kelpius--The Schuylkill River--Tom Moore--Pennsylvania Dutch--Valley Forge--Reading--Port Clinton--Pottsville--Anthracite Coal-fields--New Jersey Coast Resorts--Atlantic City-- Ocean Grove--Asbury Park--Long Branch--St. Tammany-- Poquessing--Rancocas--The Neshaminy--The Log College-- Bristol--Burlington--Pennsbury Manor--Bordentown-- Admiral Stewart--Joseph Bonaparte--Camden and Amboy Railroad--Delaware and Raritan Ca.n.a.l--Trenton Gravel-- Trenton, its Potteries, Crackers and Battle--The Swamp Angel --Morrisville--General Moreau--Princeton and its Battle --General Mercer--Princeton University--Jonathan Edwards --Marshall's Walk--Pennsylvania Palisades--Forks of the Delaware--Easton--Lafayette College--Ario Pardee-- Phillipsburg--Morris Ca.n.a.l--Lake Hopatcong--Lehigh River --Bethlehem--Lehigh University--The Moravians--Count Zinzendorf--Teedyuscung--Allentown--Lehigh Gap--Mauch Chunk--Asa Packer--Coal Mining--Summit Hill--The Switchback--Nescopec Mountain--Wyoming Valley-- Wilkesbarre--Harvey's Lake--Scranton--Wyoming Ma.s.sacre --The Foul Rift--The Terminal Moraine--The Great Glacier --Belvidere--Delaware Water Gap--The Wind Gap--Minsi and Tammany--The Minisink--The Buried Valleys--Nicholas Depui--George La Bar--Stroudsburg--Pocono k.n.o.b-- Bushkill--Walpack Bend--Pike County--Dingman's Choice-- Waterfalls--Milford--Tom Quick, the Indian Killer-- Tri-States Corner--Neversink River--Port Jervis-- Delaware and Hudson Ca.n.a.l--High Point--The Catskill Flags --Hawk's Nest--Shohola--The Lackawaxen and its Battle-- The Sylvania Society--Horace Greeley--Blooming Grove-- Pocono High k.n.o.b--Hawley--The Wallenpaupack--The Indian Orchard--Honesdale--Was.h.i.+ngton Irving--The Gravity Railroad--Carbondale--Mast Hope--Narrowsburg-- Cochecton--Hanc.o.c.k--Delaware Headwaters--Popacton River --Mohock River--Deposit--Oquaga Creek and Lake--Lake Utsyanthia--Ote-se-on-teo, Source of the Delaware.