Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 1 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881Russell, William Howard, Sir
History
Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. 1 (of 2): A Record of a Ramble in the United States and Canada in the Spring and Summer of 1881
Russell, William Howard, Sir
United States -- Description and travel
destroy the charm of the scenery of the beautiful valley in which the
Potomac and the Shenandoah meet. We got out on the platform and walked
a little way to look at the ruin of the Arsenal which was occupied by
John Brown when he led his forlorn hope, "shouting the battle-cry of
freedom," little deeming that the hills and valleys would re-echo with
the hymn-song which so often heralded the Federal soldiers on their
march to battle, to defeat or victory.
As we stood on the bridge surveying the scene, a decrepit and not very
cleanly-looking old man, who was regaling himself with a use of
tobacco of which the issues were visible around him, came up to have a
look at the strangers. He knew every inch of the place; had been here
all during the war. Sometimes the Secesh had it, and then the
Federalists would drive them out; then the Confeds would take it, and
so on. "There was pretty considerable fighting all round. See them
hills? That one there had a Federal fort on top of it; that other one
the Confeds used to hold." Why, he remembered old John Brown's scare
as if it was yesterday. "Yes, sir! But they hanged him pretty smart!
He and his people could make no fight of it when Uncle Sam's reg'lars
came up." And in front of us were the walls of the burned armoury of
the Government, and the name of the United States officer in command
still visible over the doorway--the gaunt ruin, roofless, windowless,
of a time which seemed so remote and which was not a generation gone
by.
After our short stay there we went on to Hagerstown, where Colonel
Kennedy, the President, and Judge Watts, one of the Directors, of the
Cumberland Valley Railroad, joined us, after a divergence to the
junction of the two rivers to get a sight of the country.
The Cumberland Valley is one of the most fruitful tracts in the United
States. It presented in its substantial farmhouses, clean well-tilled
fields and kempt fences, strong contrast to the untidy-looking farms
in Maryland and Virginia on the road to Richmond; we heard that the
soil had somewhat suffered from incessant cropping, and that the
competition of the Western States is causing the cultivation of corn
to be neglected. The towns appeared to be numerous and thriving, and
the people well-to-do. It had been arranged that we should pay a visit
on our way to a very interesting establishment, as it proved, at Fort
Carlisle, and I give elsewhere a detailed account of what we saw in
connection with a subject which appears to me to be of great, if
somewhat sentimental, interest--the condition and future of the Indian
race. The Duke's address to the Red children seemed to give them
great satisfaction, and he said with truth that nothing we had seen
since we had arrived in the United States interested us so much as the
establishment where they were the objects of a philanthropic
experiment, to which every one all over the world will, I am sure,
wish success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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