John Townsend Trowbridge

“ But sidelong glances, glimpsing light,
A something far too fine for sight,
Veiled voices, far off thridding strains,
And precious agonies and pains:
Not love, but only love's dear wound
And exquisite unrest I found. ”

“ He'll haul a load for ye! He'll stick to the ground go'n' up hill jest like a dry-land tarrapin! But I take the mare when I'm in a hurry; she makes them feet rattle ag'in' the ground!"
We took the plank road to Chancellorsville, passing through a waste country of weeds or undergrowth, like every other part of Virginia which I had yet seen.
"All this region through yer," said Elijah, "used to be grow'd up to corn and as beautiful clover as ever you see. But since the wa', it's all turned out to bushes and briers and hog-weeds. It's gittin' a start ag'in now. I'll show 'em how to do it. ”

“ He kin manage a heap better 'n his master kin. The' a'n't a farmer in the country kin beat him. He keeps right on jest the same now he's free; though I suppose he gits wages."
"You acknowledge, then, that some of the negroes are superior men?"
"Yes, thar's about ten in a hundred honest and smart as anybody."
"That," said I, "is a good many. Do you suppose you could say more of the white race, if it had just come out of slavery?"
"I don't believe," said Elijah, "that ye could say as much!"
We passed the remains of the house "whar Harrow was shot." It had been burned to the ground. ”

“ The common was comparatively barren, except where grew those gigantic clumps of weeds. I asked Elijah if he thought many human bones went to the factory.
"Not unless by mistake. But people a'n't always very partic'lar about mistakes thar's money to be made by."
Seeing a small inclosure midway between the road and the woods on the south, we walked to it, and found it a burying-ground ridged with unknown graves. Not a headboard, not an inscription, indicated who were the tenants of that little lonely field. And Elijah knew nothing of its history ”

“ Elijah praised the small farmers.
"People in ordinary sarcumstances along yer are a mighty industrious people. It's the rich that keep this country down. The way it generally is, a few own too much and the rest own noth'n'. I know hundreds of thousands of acres of land put to no uset, which, if it was cut up into little farms, would make the country look thrifty. ”

“ Young men would go off to the west, if they was enterpris'n', and leave them that wa'n't enterpris'n' hyer to home. Then as the old heads died off, the farms would run down. The young women would marry the lazy young men, and raise up families of lazy children."
The country all about Fredericksburg was very unhealthy. Elijah, on making inquiries, could hear of scarcely a family on the road exempt from sickness.
"It was never so till since the wa'. Now we have chills and fever, jest like they do in a new country. It's owin' to the land all comin' up to weeds ”

“ 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. ”

“ Guard well the noble vessel;
⁠And steadily evermore,
As ye steer through the perilous midnight,
⁠Let your faithful glances go
To the steadfast stars above her,
⁠From their fickle gleams below.
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Of the Chancellorsville House, formerly a large brick tavern, only the half-fallen walls and chimney-stacks remained. Here General Hooker had his head-quarters until the wave of battle on Sunday morning rolled so hot and so near that he was compelled to withdraw. The house was soon after fired by a Rebel shell, when full of wounded men, and burned.
"Every place ye see these big bunches of weeds, that's whar the' was hosses or men buried," said Elijah. "These holes are whar the bones have been dug up for the bone-factory at Fredericksburg." ”

“ It was the deep spirit of humanity itself, ready to make the richest sacrifices, calm, determined, inexorable, moving steadily towards the great object to be achieved. It has been said that General Grant did not consider the lives of his men. ”

“ The larger land-owners are now more willing to sell.
"Right smart o' their property was in niggers; they're pore now, and have to raise money.
"The emancipation of slavery," added Elijah, "is wo'kin' right for the country mo'e ways 'an one. The' a'n't two men in twenty, in middlin' sarcumstances, but that's beginnin' to see it. I'm no friend to the niggers, though. They ought all to be druv out of the country. They won't wo'k as long as they can steal. I have my little crap o' corn, and wheat, and po'k; when night comes, I must sleep ”

“ I've had the agur myself till about a fortnight ago; then, soon as I got shet of that, the colic took me. Eat too much on a big appetite, I suppose. I like to live well; like to see plenty of everything on the table, and then I like to see every man eat a heap. ”

“ Man I lived with used to have a mare that was trained to hunt; if she was in the field and heard the dogs, she'd whirl her tail up on her back, lope the fences, and go spang to the United States Ford, git thar 'fo'e the dogs would, and hunt as well without a rider as with one. ”

“ Every mile or two we came to a small farm-house, commonly of logs, near which there was usually a small crop of corn growing.
"Every man after he got home, after the fall of Richmond, put in to raise a little somethin' to eat. Some o' the corn looks poo'ly, but it beats no corn at all, all to pieces." ”

“ But the rich ones jest scratched over a little on 't with their slave labor, and let the rest go. They wouldn't sell: let a young man go to 'em to buy, and they'd say they didn't want no poo' whites around 'em ”