Bradford Torrey

Spring Notes From Tennessee Bradford Torrey

I reached Chattanooga on the evening of April 26th, in the midst of a rattling thunder-shower, -which, to look back upon it, seems to have been prophetic, -and the next morning, after an early breakfast, took an electric car for Missionary Ridge. Among my fellow-passengers were four Louisiana veterans fresh from their annual reunion at Birmingham, where, doubtless, their hearts had been kindled by much fervent oratory, as well as by much private talk of those bygone days when they did everything but die for the cause they loved. As the car mounted the Ridge, one of them called his companions' attention to a place down the valley where "the Rebels and the Yankees" (his own words) used to meet to play cards. "A regular gambling-hole," he called it. Their boys brought back lots of coffee. In another direction was a spot where the Rebels once "had a regular picnic," killing some extraordinary number of Yankees in some incredibly brief time. I interrupted the conversation, and at the same time made myself known as a stranger and a Northerner, by inquiring after the whereabouts of Orchard Knob, General Grant's headquarters; and the same man, who seemed to be the spokesman of the party, after pointing out the place, a savin-sprinkled knoll between us and the city, kindly invited me to go with him and his comrades up to the tower, -on the site of General Bragg's headquarters, -where he would show me the whole battlefield and tell me about the fi