Culpepper, where I am stopping, looks like a place of two or three
thousand inhabitants. Must be one of the pleasantest towns in Virginia.
Even now, dilapidated fences, all broken down, windows out, it has the
remains of much beauty. I am standing on an eminence overlooking the
town, though within its limits. To the west the long Blue Mountain range
is very plain, looks quite near, though from 30 to 50 miles distant,
with some gray splashes of snow yet visible. The show is varied and
fascinating. I see a great eagle up there in the air sailing with pois'd
wings, quite low. Squads of red-legged soldiers are drilling; I suppose
some of the new men of the Brooklyn 14th; they march off presently with
muskets on their shoulders. In another place, just below me, are some
soldiers squaring off logs to build a shanty--chopping away, and the
noise of the axes sounding sharp. I hear the bellowing, unmusical
screech of the mule. I mark the thin blue smoke rising from camp fires.
Just below me is a collection of hospital tents, with a yellow flag
elevated on a stick, and moving languidly in the breeze. Two discharged
men (I know them both) are just leaving. One is so weak he can hardly
walk; the other is stronger, and carries his comrade's musket. They move
slowly along the muddy road toward the depot. The scenery is full of
breadth, and spread on the most generous scale (everywhere in Virginia
this thought fill'd me.) The sights, the scenes, the groups, have been
varied and picturesque here beyond description, and remain so.
I heard the men return in force the other night--heard the shouting, and
got up and went out to hear what was the matter. That night scene of
so many hundred tramping steadily by, through the mud (some big flaring
torches of pine knots,) I shall never forget. I like to go to the
paymaster's tent, and watch the men getting paid off. Some have
furloughs, and start at once for home, sometimes amid great chaffing and
blarneying. There is every day the sound of the wood-chopping axe, and
the plentiful sight of negroes, crows, and mud. I note large droves and
pens of cattle. The teamsters have camps of their own, and I go often
among them. The officers occasionally invite me to dinner or supper at
headquarters. The fare is plain, but you get something good to drink,
and plenty of it. Gen. Meade is absent; Sedgwick is in command.