Coming out on the brow of a little knoll, near which, in the hollow and across the brook was a double log-cabin, we stood beside the “Bull Run Monument.” It is a plain obelisk, built up of the sand-stone found in the neighborhood, roughly-faced down and cemented with coarse mortar. On its sides smooth places had been obtained by daubing on a little square of plaster. On these were painted the words “Erected, June 10, 1865, in honor of the Patriots who fell at Bull Run, July 21, 1861.” On either hand stretched the rolling country; below us murmured a little brook; away beyond the log-cabin at the bottom of the hill, a dark forest line shut in the view. A few yards from the monument stood half-a-dozen peach trees, loaded with excellent fruit, with which the driver took care to fill the lunch-basket.
Driving over to the extreme right of the Bull Run ground, we came out into the edge of the woods on the left of the field where the second Bull Run was fought. An old school-house, without doors, windows, desks or seats, had in some way been preserved. A few bullets and fragments of shell could still be found under the trees—there was nothing else to speak of battle, or indeed, of the presence of man for years. Leaving the ambulance here, we walked down through the woods till we struck the railroad-cut, of which Stonewall Jackson made such effective use. Here, too, a few bullets and fragments of shell were to be found; beyond was the long, rank grass covering what had once been cultivated fields. Climbing the hill—with not a few admonitions about the snakes that in the grass do hide—we reached the Second Bull Run Monument, erected by a Northern regiment at the same time with the other, and almost its fac simile. The inscription read:
“In memory of the
Patriots
Who fell at Groveton,
August 28th, 29th and 30th, 1862.”
Since the return of the Rebels, after Lee’s surrender, another word had been carefully and conspicuously interlined and the inscription read:
“In memory of the
Confederate Patriots,” etc.
When the rebellion began arsenals and ammunition were stolen; when it ended we had this more original performance of stealing a monument.