I have described in my former _Memoirs_ that melancholy country of the
Wilderness; its unending thickets; its roads, narrow and deserted,
which seem to wind on forever; the desolate fields, here and there
covered with stunted bushes; the owls flapping their dusky wings; the
whip-poor-will, crying in the jungle; and the moccasin gliding
stealthily amid the ooze, covered with its green scum.
Strange and sombre country! lugubrious shades where death lurked!
Already two great armies had clutched there in May, 1863. Now, in May,
'64, the tangled thicket was again to thunder; men were going to
grapple here in a mad wrestle even more desperate than the former!
Two roads stretch from Orange Court-House to Chancellorsville--the old
turnpike, and the plank road--running through Verdiersville.
I took the latter, followed the interminable wooden pathway through the
thicket, and toward evening came to the point where the Ely's Ford road
comes in near Chancellorsville. Here, surrounded by the rotting
weapons, bones and skulls of the great battle already fought, I found
Mohun ready for the battle that was coming.
He commanded the regiment on picket opposite Ely's Ford; and was
pointed out to me at three hundred yards from an old torn down house
which still remains there, I fancy.
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