Culpepper C. H., Va., April 8, 1864.
. . . With General Grant and several members of his staff, I
visited Cedar Run Mountain, twelve miles distant from here. On the way there,
at Mitchell's Station, the General reviewed Leonard's brigade of General
Robinson's Division, 5th Corps, and was greatly pleased with it. Cedar Run
Mountain was made historic as the scene of the battle fought by our forces
under General Banks of General Pope's army and the Confederates under General
Stonewall Jackson, in the summer of 1862. The view from the mountains is among
the finest I have ever seen and in times of peace I have no doubt would afford
one the liveliest pleasure. It rises from the Valley of Virginia and from its
summit in any direction you may turn the eye, it is met by once finely improved
plantations and forests which stretch off till they meet the highlands that
seem to almost surround it. These plantations are now despoiled of fencing and
everything of value that industry of man had added. No husbandman ploughed the
fields, except beyond the Rapidan where a few spots of cultivated land are
discernible. The enemy's camps, one division, are plainly visible, but the
river separates our pickets from theirs. I have seen the enemy's camps before
this and from other points of view, and in every instance heretofore have been
with the advance of the triumphant columns that entered them, and my heart's
prayer is that the same fortune, perhaps I should say kind Providence which has
attended us heretofore will still be with us and that before many weeks have
passed it will be safe for one of our army to pass through the ground where now
are picketed the tents of treason. . . .
SOURCE: James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins,
p. 413
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