Passing straight along the plank road, we came to a large farm-house, which had been gutted by soldiers, and but recently reoccupied. It was still in a scarcely habitable condition. However, we managed to obtain, what we stood greatly in need of, a cup of cold water. I observed that it tasted strongly of iron. "The reason of that is, we took twelve camp-kettles out of the well," said the man of the house, "and nobody knows how many more there are down there." The place is known as Locust Grove. In the edge of the forest, but a little farther on, is the Wilderness Church,--a square framed building, which showed marks of such usage as every uninhabited house receives at the hands of a wild soldiery. Red Mars has little respect for the temples of the Prince of Peace. "Many a time have I been to meet'n' in that shell, and sot on hard benches, and heard long sermons!" said Elijah. "But I reckon it'll be a long while befo'e them doo's are darkened by a congregation ag'in. Thar a'n't the population through hyer thar used to be. Oncet we'd have met a hundred wagons on this road go'n' to market; but I count we ha'n't met mo'e 'n a dozen to-day." Not far beyond the church we approached two tall guide-posts erected where the road forks. The one on the right pointed the way to the "Wilderness National Cemetery, No. 1, 4 miles," by the Orange Court-House turnpike. The other indicated the "Wilderness National Cemetery, No. 2," by the plank road. "All this has been done since I was this way," said Elijah. We kept the plank road,--or rather the clay road beside it, which stretched before us dim in the hollows, and red as brick on the hillsides. We passed some old fields, and entered the great Wilderness,--a high and dry country, thickly overgrown with dwarfish timber, chiefly scrub oaks, pines, and cedars. Poles lashed to trees for tent-supports indicated where our regiments had encamped; and soon we came upon abundant evidences of a great battle. Heavy breastworks thrown up on Brock's cross-road, planks from the plank road piled up and lashed against trees in the woods, to form a shelter for our pickets, knapsacks, haversacks, pieces of clothing, fragments of harness, tin plates, canteens, some pierced with balls, fragments of shells, with here and there a round-shot, or a shell unexploded, straps, buckles, cartridge-boxes, socks, old shoes, rotting letters, desolate tracts of perforated and broken trees,--all these signs, and others sadder still, remained to tell their silent story of the great fight of the Wilderness.