I had afterwards many walks about Fredericksburg, the most noteworthy of which was a morning-visit to the Lacy House, where Burnside had his head-quarters. Crossing the Rappahannock on the pontoon bridge, I climbed the stone steps leading from terrace to terrace, and reached the long-neglected grounds and the old-fashioned Virginia mansion. It was entirely deserted. The doors were wide open, or broken from their hinges, the windows smashed, the floors covered with rubbish, and the walls with the names of soldiers and regiments, or pictures cut from the illustrated newspapers.
The windows command a view of Fredericksburg and the battle-field; and there I stood, and saw in imagination the fight reënacted,—the pontoniers at their work in the misty morning, the sharpshooters in rifle-pits and houses opposite driving them from it with their murderous fire, the shelling of the town, the troops crossing, the terrible roaring battle, the spouting flames, the smoke, the charging parties, and the horrible slaughter;—I saw and heard it all again, and fancied for a time that I was the commanding general, whose eyes beheld, and whose wrung heart felt, what he would gladly have given his own life to prevent or retrieve.
CHAPTER XIV.
TO CHANCELLORSVILLE.
In conversation with my Rebel acquaintance at the Marye House, I had learned that his friend “’Lijah” sometimes conveyed travellers over the more distant battle-fields. Him, therefore, I sent to engage with his horse and buggy for the following day.
Breakfast was scarcely over the next morning, when, as I chanced to look from my hotel-window, I saw a thin-faced countryman drive up to the door in an old one-horse wagon with two seats, and a box half filled with corn-stalks. I was admiring the anatomy of the horse, every prominent bone of which could be counted through his skin, when I heard the man inquiring for me. It was “’Lijah,” with his “horse and buggy.”
I was inclined to criticise the establishment, which was not altogether what I had been led to expect.
“I allow he a’n’t a fust-class hoss,” said Elijah. “Only give three dollars for him. Feed is skurce and high. But let him rest this winter, and git some meal in him, and he’ll make a plough crack next spring.”
“What are you going to do with those corn-stalks?”
“Fodder for the hoss. They’re all the fodder he’ll git till night; for we’re go’n’ into a country whar thar’s noth’n’ mo’e for an animal to eat than thar is on the palm of my hand.”
I took a seat beside him, and made use of the stalks by placing a couple of bundles between my back and the sharp board which travellers were expected to lean against. Elijah cracked his whip, the horse frisked his tail, and struck into a cow-trot which pleased him.