Not all the land is ill adapted to cool actions and strategy; there are sections naturally fortified, and these have been the scenes of military vicissitudes memorable, extreme, picturesque, and fatal. Here is an instance: 'There is no town in the United States which exhibits more deplorably the ravages of war than Harper's Ferry. More than half the buildings are in ruins, and those now inhabited are occupied by small dealers and peddlers, who follow troops, and sell at exorbitant prices, tarts and tinware, cakes and crockery, pipes and poultry, shoes and shirts, soap and sardines. The location is one of peculiar beauty. The Potomac receives the Shenandoah at this point; each stream flowing through its own deep, wild, winding valley, until it washes the base of the promontory, on the sides and summit of which are scattered the houses and ruins of the town. The rapids of the rivers prevent navigation, and make the fords hazardous. The piers of an iron bridge and a single section still remaining, indicate a once beautiful structure; and a pontoon substitute shows the presence of troops. An occasional canal boat suggests a still continued effort at traffic, and transport railcars prove action in the quartermaster's department. The mountains are 'high and hard to climb.' The jagged sides of slate rock rise vertically, in many places to lofty heights, inducing the sensation of fear lest they should fall, while riding along the road which winds under the threatening cliffs. The mountains are crowned with batteries, 'like diadems across the brow,' and the Hottentoty-Sibley tents dot the ridges like miniature anthills.' But within and around the capital of Virginia cluster the extreme associations of her history: these memories and memorials of patriotism hallow the soil whereon the chief traitors inaugurated their infamous rule; the trial of Burr and the burning of the theatre are social traditions which make Richmond a name fraught with tragic and political interest; her social and forensic annals are illustrious; and, hereafter, among the many anomalies of the nation's history, few will more impress the thoughtful reminiscent than that a city eminent for social refinement and long the honored resort of the most eminent American statesmen and jurists, the seat of elegant hospitality and the shrine of national fame, was, for years, desecrated by the foulest prisons, filled with brave American citizens, who were subjected to insults and privations such as only barbarians could inflict, for no cause but the gallant defence of the national honor and authority against a slaveholders' rebellion. But perhaps no coincidence is more impressive in the late experience of a Union soldier in Virginia than the associations then and there awakened by the recurrence of the anniversary of the birth of her noblest son and our matchless patriot: