SOME SUPERFICIAL GLANCES
Indeed it would be no difficult matter to imagine one's self back in
the days of Lee and Grant, for the Northern Virginia of to-day is
very like the Northern Virginia of 1865 with the exception of
the houses. Very little of the land is cultivated and all of it is
devoid of fences. The most of it seems thicket and scrub oak,
with pigs and cattle running through it. Within a stone's throw
of Camp Alger was an old mill under whose wagon shed stood
the moss-covered tires of a wagon which had been left there to
rot when the negroes of the place went North..
Laissez-faire isn't the spirit of the South as a whole but it
seems to be the spirit of that part of it near Falls Church.
As the road begins to get less rugged and shows signs of more
use you catch a glimpse of something red through the trees, a
guard before invisible springs into sight from a neighboring
thicket, as an officer gallops past, and a sudden turn in the road
brings in sight a long low white house before which flies an
American flag and the yellow four-leafed clover badge of the
Second Army Corps. It is the headquarters of the' commanding
General. Farther on you paSS a mounted officer galloping helter
skelter with orders, then heavily laden wagons, marked U. S.
and drawn by the traditional army mule, who now looks decid
edly meek and disgusted. Negroes trudge along the roadside..
Here and there a soldier. • There is a shout from the driver, a
flash of steel in the sunlight, a thud of hoofs, a clattering of
scabbards and a detachment of cavalry gallop past whose red and
white guidon, as it flutters by, proclaim them our own Penn Sy
lvania troopers.
The nearer the camp you gel the more you imagine you are
coming to a vast circus or fair. All sorts and conditions of men
and even women line the roadways. Booths hastily constructed
of undressed pine boards are everywhere in evidence. Red lem
onade, peanut, cake, candy and• pie venders are thick. Here is
an ice cream " parlor," there a tailoring establishment which con
sists of a machine set up under a tree of the " spreading chestnut"
variety, here a pool table and there a soft drink stand. Guards
are plentiful around here because Johnny is careless of what he
buys and eats and the rapid spread of sickness has made some
sort of supervision necessary.,
One thing about this Virginia country is that you can't see far.
One minute you, are on a wooded road the next'you are up a hilt