by the 50th N. Y. V. Engineers. Capt. M. H. McGrath, architect."

The Poplar Spring Church, which formerly stood somewhere in that vicinity, had been destroyed during the war; and this church had been left as a fitting legacy to its congregation by the soldiers who built it. The village had been the winter-quarters of the engineer corps.

Driving westward along the track of the army railroad, and past its termination, we struck across the open fields to the Federal signal-tower, lifting skyward its lofty open framework and dizzy platforms, in the midst of an extensive plain. Το ascend a few stages of this breezy observatory, and see the sun go down behind the distant dim line of forests, while the evening shadows thickened upon the landscape, was a fit termination to the day's experience; and we returned with rapid wheels to the city.

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

JAMES RIVER AND FORTRESS MONROE.

THE next day I proceeded to City Point by railroad, riding in an old patched-up car marked outside "U. S. Military R. R.," and furnished inside with pine benches for seats and boards nailed up in place of windows. There was nothing of interest on the road, which passed through a region of stumps. and undergrowth, with scarce an inhabitant, save the few negro families that had taken up their abode in abandoned army huts. City Point itself was no less dull. Built on high and rolling ground, at the confluence of the Appomattox and the James, a fine site for a village, it had nothing to show but an ugly cluster of rough wooden buildings, such as spring up like fungus in the track of an army, and a long line of gov ernment warehouses by the river.

I took the first steamer for Richmond; returning thence, in a few days, down the James to Norfolk and Fortress Monroe. This voyage possesses an interest which can merely be hinted at in a description. You are gliding between shores rich with historical associations old and new. The mind goes back to the time when Captain John Smith, with the expedition of 1607, sailed up this stream, which they named in honor of their king. But you are diverted from those recollections by the landmarks of recent famous events: the ruins of ironclads below Richmond; the wrecks of gunboats; obstructions in the channel; Fort Darling, on a high bluff; every commanding eminence crowned by a redoubt; Dutch Gap Canal; Deep Bottom; Butler's tower of observation; Malvern Hill, where the last battle of McClellan's retreat was fought, — a gentle elevation on the north bank, marked by a small house and clumps of trees; Harrison's Landing, a long pier extending

out into the river; Jamestown, the first settlement in Virginia, now an island with a few huts only, and two or three chimney-stacks of burnt houses, looking as desolate as when first destroyed, at the time of Bacon's rebellion, near two hundred years ago; Newport News below, a place with a few shanties, and a row of grinning batteries; Hampton Roads, bristling and animated with shipping, the scene of the fight between the "Merrimac " and the "Monitor," initiating a new era in naval warfare; Hampton away on the north, with its conspicuous square white hospital; Norfolk on the south, up the Elizabeth River; the Rip-Raps, and Sewall's Point; and, most astonishing object of all, that huge finger of the military power, placed here to hold these shores, Fortress Monroe.

It was a wild, windy day; the anchored ships were tossing on the white-capped waves; but the Fortress presented a beautiful calm picture, as we approached it, with its proud flag careering in the breeze, its white light-house on the beach, and the afternoon sunshine on its broad walls and grassy ramparts.

Before the war, there was a large hotel between the Fortress and the wharves, capable of accommodating a thousand persons. This was torn down, because it obstructed the range of the guns; and a miserable one-and-a-half story diningsaloon had been erected in its place. Here, after much persuasion, I managed to secure a lodging under the low, unfinished roof. The proprietor told me that the government, which owns the land on which his house stands, exacted no payment for it, under General Dix's administration; but that General Butler, on coming into power, immediately clapped on a smart rent of five hundred dollars a month, which the landlord could pay, or take his house elsewhere. I thought the circumstance characteristic.

The next morning, having a letter to General Miles, in command at the Fortress, I obtained admission within the massy walls. I crossed the moat on the drawbridge, and entered the gate opening under the heavy bastions. I found

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myself in the midst of a village, on a level plain, shaded by trees. A guard was given me, with orders to show me whatever I wished to see, with one exception, the interior of Mr. Jefferson Davis's private residence. This retired Rebel chief had been removed from the casemate in which he was originally confined, and was occupying Carrol Hall, a plain, threestory, yellow-painted building, built for officers' quarters. I walked past the doors, and looked up at the modest windowcurtains, wondering what his thoughts were, sitting there, meditating his fallen fortunes, with the flag of the nation he had attempted to overthrow floating above his head, and its cannon frowning on the ramparts around him. Did he enjoy his cigar, and read the morning newspaper with interest?

The strength and vastness of Fortress Monroe astonishes one. It is the most expensive fortress in the United States, having cost nearly two and a half million dollars. It is a mile around the ramparts. The walls are fifty feet thick. The stone masonry which forms their outward face rises twenty feet above high-water mark in the moat; and the grassy parapets are built ten feet higher. There were only seven hundred men in the fort, a small garrison.

I was shown the great magazine which Arnold, one of the Booth conspirators, proposed to blow up. His plan was to get a clerkship in the ordnance office, which would afford hin facilities for carrying out his scheme. Had this succeeded, the terrible explosion that would have ensued would not only have destroyed the Fortress, but not a building on the Point would have been left standing.

I made the circuit of the ramparts, overlooking Hampton Roads on one side, and the broad bay on the other. The sun was shining; the waves were breaking on the shore; the band was playing proud martial airs; the nation's flag rolled voluptuously in the wind; steamers and white-sailed ships were going and coming; the sky above was of deep blue, full peace. It was hard to realize that the immense structure on which I walked, amid such a scene, was merely an engine

of

of war.

While I was at General Miles's head-quarters an interesting case of pardoned rebellion was developed. Mr. Y————, a noted secessionist of Warwick County, was one of those who had early pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor to the Confederate cause. He had commenced his patriotic service by seizing at his wharf on the Warwick River a private vessel which happened to be loading with lumber at the time when the State seceded, and sending her as a prize up to Richmond; and he had crowned his career by assisting Wirz in his official work at Andersonville. During the war the government against which he was fighting had taken the liberty of cutting a little lumber on this gentleman's abandoned lands. He had since become professedly loyal, paid a visit to the good President at Washington, and returned to his estates with his pardon in his pocket. The first thing he did was to drive off the government contractor's employees with threats of violence. He would not even allow them to take away the government property he found on his place, but threatened to shoot every man who approached for that purpose. An officer came to head-quarters, when I was there, requesting a guard of soldiers to protect the lives of the laborers during the removal of this property.