Every mile or two we came to a small farm-house, com monly of logs, near which there was usually a small crop of corn growing.

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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."

We came to one field which Elijah pronounced a "monstrous fine crap." But he added,

"I've got thirty acres to home not a bit sorrier 'n that. Ye see, that mule of mine," etc.

I noticed what I never saw in the latitude of New England that the fodder had been pulled below the ears and tied in little bundles on the stalks to cure. Ingenious shifts for fences had been resorted to by the farmers. In some places the planks of the worn-out plank-road had been staked and lashed together to form a temporary enclosure. But the most common fence was what Elijah called "bresh wattlin'." Stakes were first driven into the ground, then pine or cedar brush bent in between them and beaten down with a maul.

"Ye kin build a wattlin' fence that way so tight a rabbit can't git through."

On making inquiries, I found that farms of fine land could be had all through this region for ten dollars an acre.

Elijah hoped that men from the North would come in and settle.

"But," said he, "'t would be dangerous for any one to take possession of a confiscated farm. He would n't live a month."

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,

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and po❜k. When night comes, I must sleep; then the niggers come and steal all I've got."

I pressed him to give an instance of the negroes' stealing his property. He could not say that they had taken anything from him lately, but they "used to" rob his cornfields and hen-roosts, and "they would again." Had he ever caught them at it? No, he could not say that he ever had. Then how did he know that the thieves were negroes? He knew it, because "niggers would steal.”

"Won't white folks steal too, sometimes?"

"Yes," said Elijah, "some o' the poo' whites are a durned sight wus 'n the niggers!

"Then why not drive them out of the country too? You see," said I, "your charges against the negroes are vague, and amount to nothing."

"I own," he replied, "thar 's now and then one that 's ekal to any white man. Thar's one a-comin' thar."

A load of wood was approaching, drawn by two horses abreast and a mule for leader. A white-haired old negro was riding the mule.

"He is the greatest man!" said Elijah, after we had passed. "He's been the support of his master's family for twenty year and over. 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.

"You've heerd about Harrow; he was Confederate commissary; he stole mo'e hosses f'om the people, and po'ed the money down his own throat, than would have paid fo' fo'ty men like him, if he was black."

A mile or two farther on, we came to another house.

"Hyer's whar the man lives that killed Harrow. He was in the army, and because he objected to some of Harrow's doin's, Harrow had him arrested, and treated him very much amiss. That ground into his conscience and feelin's, and he deserted fo' no other puppose than to shoot him. He's a mighty smart fellah! He'll strike a man side the head, and soon's his fist leaves it, his foot's thar. He shot Harrow in that house you see burnt to the ground, and then went spang to Washington. O, he was sharp!"

-

On our return we met the slayer of Harrow riding home from Fredericksburg on a mule, a fine-looking young fellow, of blonde complexion, a pleasant countenance, finely chiselled nose and lips, and an eye full of sunshine. "Jest the best-hearted, nicest young fellah in the wo'ld, till ye git him mad; then look out!" I think it is often the most attractive persons, of fine temperaments, who are capable of the most terrible wrath when roused.

The plank-road was in such a ruined condition that nobody thought of driving on it, although the dirt road beside it was in places scarcely better. The back of the seat was cruel, notwithstanding the corn-stalks. But by means of much persuasion, enforced by a good whip, Elijah kept the old horse jogging on. Oak-trees, loaded with acorns, grew beside the road. Black-walnuts, already beginning to lose their leaves, hung their delicate balls in the clear light over our heads. Poke-weeds, dark with ripening berries, wild grapes festooning bush and tree, sumachs thrusting up through the foliage their sanguinary spears, persimmon-trees, gum-trees, red cedars, with their bluish-green clusters, chestnut-oaks, and chincapins, adorned the wild wayside.

So we approached Chancellorsville, twelve miles from Fredericksburg. Elijah was raised in that region, and knew everybody.

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"Many a frolic have I had runnin' the deer through these woods! Soon as the dogs started one, he 'd put fo' the river, cross, take a turn on t' other side, and it would n't be an hour 'fo'e he'd be back ag'in. 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."

But since then a far different kind of hunting, a richer blood than the deer's, and other sounds than the exciting yelp of the dogs, had rendered that region famous.

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Hyer we come to the Chancellorsville farm. Many a poo' soldier's knapsack was emptied of his clothes, after the battle, along this road!" said Elijah, remembering last winter's business with his mule.

The road runs through a large open field bounded by woods. The marks of hard fighting were visible from afar off. A growth of saplings edging the woods on the south had been killed by volleys of musketry: they looked like thickets of bean-poles. The ground everywhere, in the field and in the woods, was strewed with mementos of the battle, rotting knapsacks and haversacks, battered canteens and tin cups, and fragments of clothing which Elijah's customers had not deemed it worth the while to pick up. On each side of the road were breastworks and rifle-pits extending into the woods. The clearing, once a well-fenced farm of grain-fields and cloverlots, was now a dreary and deserted common. Of the Chancellorsville House, formerly a large brick tavern, only the half-fallen walls and chimney-stacks remained. Here General Hooker had his headquarters 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 tha' 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 easy for the bone-seekers to determine where to di The common was comparatively barren, except where gre those gigantic clumps of weeds. I asked Elijah if he thoug many human bones went to the factory.

"Not unless by mistake. But people a'n't always very pa tic'lar about mistakes thar 's money to be made by."

Seeing a small enclosure midway between the road and t woods on the south, we walked to it, and found it a buryi ground ridged with unknown graves. Not a head-board, n an inscription, indicated who were the tenants of that lit lonely field. And Elijah knew nothing of its history; it h been set apart, and the scattered dead had been gathered t gether and buried there, since he passed that way.

We found breastworks thrown up all along by the plan! road west of the farm, the old worn planks having been p to good service in their construction. The tree-trunks pierce by balls, the boughs lopped off by shells, the strips of timb cut to pieces by artillery and musketry fire, showed how de perate the struggle on that side had been. The endeavors the Confederates to follow up with an overwhelming victor Jackson's swift and telling blows on our right, and the equa determined efforts of our men to retrieve that disaster, rendere this the scene of a furious encounter.

Elijah thought that if Jackson had not been killed by own men after delivering that thunderstroke, Hooker wou have been annihilated. "Stonewall" was undoubtedly t enemy's best fighting General. His death was to them equ to the loss of many brigades. With regard to the manner his death there can be no longer any doubt. I have convers with Confederate officers who were in the battle, all of who agree as to the main fact. General Jackson, after shattering right wing, posted his pickets at night with directions to fi upon any man or body of men that might approach. He after wards rode forward to reconnoitre, returned inadvertently the same road, and was shot by his own orders.