ANTIETAM NATIONAL BURYING-GROUND.

55

on the right, they cover the side of the bluff below the bridge. The trees all along here were well scarred with shot. Half a mile below the bridge the creek makes a bold turn to the right, and doubles back upon itself, forming a loop, then sweeps away to the south, between a wooded hill on the west. and a magnificent growth of willows massing their delicate green and drooping foliage along the low opposite shore.

Returning to the village, I visited the spot chosen as a national cemetery for the slain. The ground had been purchased, but work upon it had not yet commenced. As Pennsylvania gave the soil for the Gettysburg Cemetery, so Maryland gives the soil for this; while each State will defray its portion of future expenses. In the Antietam cemetery it is understood that the Rebel dead are to be included. Many object to this; but I do not. Skeletons, rooted up by hogs, and blanching in the open fields, are a sight not becoming a country that calls itself Christian. Be they the bones of Patriots or Rebels, let them be carefully gathered up and decently interred without delay.

The Antietam National Burying-Ground also adjoins an old town cemetery. It is situated on the right hand, at the summit of the road, as you go up out of Sharpsburg towards Boonsboro'. Here let them rest together, they of the good cause, and they of the evil; I shall be content. For neither was the one cause altogether good, nor was the other altogether bad the holier being clouded by much ignorance and selfishness, and the darker one brightened here and there with glorious flashes of self-devotion. It was not, rightly

speaking, these brothers that were at war. The conflict was waged between two great principles, -one looking towards liberty and human advancement, the other madly drawing the world back to barbarism and the dark ages. America was the chessboard on which the stupendous game was played, and we name Patriots and Rebels were but as the pawns. Great was the day of Antietam. Three thousand of the enemy were buried on the field.

those

We had two thousand

killed, upwards of nine thousand four hundred wounded, and

more than a thousand missing. Between the sweet dawn and the bloody dusk of that dread day there fell TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND MEN! Can the imagination conceive of such slaughter?

And, after all, the striking fact about Antietam is this, that it was a great opportunity lost. The premature surrender of Harper's Ferry, which set free the force besieging it, and enabled the enemy to outnumber us on the field, — for Stonewall Jackson was as anxious to get into the fight as Fitz John Porter was to keep out of it, and the subsequent inertia of the General commanding the United States forces; these two causes combined to save the Confederate army from annihilation. No such opportunity for crushing the Rebellion at a blow had been offered, nor was any such again offered, -not even at Gettysburg, for the enemy there had no coiling river in their rear to entangle them, and we had no fresh troops to launch upon them, nor at any period afterwards, antil Grant consummated that long-desired object; God's good time having not yet come.

DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER'S FERRY.

SHARPSBURG is not a promising place to spend the night in, and I determined to leave it that evening. In search of a private conveyance, I entered a confectioner's shop, and asked a young lady behind the counter if she knew any person who would take me to Harper's Ferry.

"Yes; Mr. Bennerhalls," she replied; "I reckon ye can get him."

She

gave me particular directions for finding his house, and I went up one of the broken pavements "fanged with murderous stones," in search of him. To my surprise I was told that Mr. Bennerhalls did not live on that street; further, that no person of that name was known in Sharpsburg. I returned to the confectioner's shop.

“You said Mr. Bennerhalls?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Bennerhalls, and Mr. Cra nerhalls, and Mr. Joneshalls; I should think you might get one of them." I fancy the young lady must have seen a smile on my countenance just then. Bennerhalls, Cramerhalls, Joneshalls, -what outlandish cognomens were these? Did half the family names in Sharpsburg rejoice in the termination halls ? "I know Mr. Joneshalls," said the young lady, as I stood solving the doubt, probably with an amused expression which she mistook for sarcastic incredulity.

66

Joneshalls" I had never heard of. But I had heard of Jones. Thanks to that somewhat familiar name, I had found a clue to the mystery. "Jones hauls," thought I, that is to say, Jones hauls people over the road in his wagon.

And the first-mentioned individual was not Bennerhalls at all, but one Benner who hauled.

I thanked the young lady for her courtesy, and I am sure she must have thought me a very pleasant man, — and went to find Mr. Benner without the halls.

No difficulty this time. He was sitting on a doorstep, where he had perhaps heard me before inquiring up and down for Mr. Bennerhalls, and scratched his head over the odd patronymic.

"Yes, I have hosses, and I haul sometimes, but I can't put one on 'em over that road to Harper's Ferry, stranger, nohow!"

I got no more satisfaction out of Cramer, and still less out of Jones, who informed me that not only he would not go, but he did n't believe there was a man in Sharpsburg that would.

I returned to the tavern, and appealed to the landlord, a pleasant and very obliging man, although not so well versed as some in the art of keeping a hotel. To my surprise, after what Jones had told me, he said, "if I could find no one else to haul me, he would."

At five P. M. we left Sharpsburg in an open buggy under a sky that threatened rain. Black clouds and thunder-gusts were all around us. The mountains were wonderful to behold the nearer slopes lying in shadow, sombre almost to blackness, while beyond, rendered all the more glorious by that contrast, rose the loveliest sun-smitten summits, basking in the peace of paradise. Beyond these still were black-capped peaks, about which played uncertain waves of light, belts and bars of softest indescribable colors, perpetually shifting, brightening, and vanishing in mist. It was like a momentary glimpse of heaven through the stormy portals of the world. Then down came the deluging rack and enveloped all.

Through occasional spatters of rain, angrily spitting squalls, we whipped on. It was a fleet horse my friend drove. He was pleased to hear me praise him.

"That's a North-Carolina horse. I brought him home with me."

"You have been in the army then?"

And out came the interesting fact that I was riding with Captain Speaker of the First Maryland Cavalry, a man who had seen service, and had things to tell.

CAPTAIN SPEAKER'S NARRATIVE.

59

Everybody remembers, in connection with the shameful surrender of Harper's Ferry just before the battle of Antietam, the brilliant episode of twenty-two hundred Federal cavalry cutting their way out, and capturing a part of one of Longstreet's trains on their escape. Captain Speaker was the leader of that expedition.

"I was second lieutenant of the First Maryland Cavalry at the time. I knew Colonel Davis very well; and when I heard Harper's Ferry was to be surrendered, I remarked to him that I would not be surrendered with it alive. He asked what I would do. Cut my way out,' said I. When he asked what I meant, I told him I believed I could not only get out myself, but that I could pilot out with safety any number of cavalry that would take the same risk and go with me. I had lived in the country all my life, and knew every part of it. Colonel Davis saw that I was in earnest, and knew what I was talking about. The idea just suited him, and he applied to Colonel Miles for permission to put it into execution. Colonel Miles was not a man to think much of such projects, and he was inclined to laugh at it. Who is this Lieutenant Speaker,’ said he, who is so courageous?' Colonel Davis said he knew me, and had confidence in my plan. It's all talk,' said Miles; put him to the test, and he 'll back down.'

"Just try him,' said Davis.

"So Miles wrote on a piece of paper,

666

Lieutenant Speaker, will you take charge of a cavalry force and lead it through the enemy's lines?'

"I just wrote under it, on the same piece of paper, Yes, with pleasure;' signed my name, and sent it back to him." At ten o'clock the same night they started. It was Sunday, the 14th of September, the day of the battle of South Mountain. The party consisted of twenty-two hundred cavalry a number of mounted civilians who took advantage of the expedition to escape from the town before it was surrendered. Lieutenant Speaker and Colonel Davis rode side by side at the head of the column. They crossed on the pontoon bridge, which formed the military connection between

and