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| Headquarters of Thomas and Sherman.1 |
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| Plan of Cemetery at Chattanooga. |
May 11, 1866. |
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[178]
Ridge.
It received its name from its owner, Mr. Cameron, an artist from Philadelphia, who, in the pleasant wood that covered it, built a house, and there enjoyed the luxury of a delightful climate and picturesque scenery.
When the war broke out he left his home.
The hill was soon stripped of its trees, scarred by trenches, and crowned with a heavy battery, built by Bragg; and a week before our visit his house was burned by accident.
The ruined walls of it may be seen in the foreground of the picture on page 163.
From Cameron's Hill we rode to the Cemetery, in the direction of the Missionaries' Ridge, where Chaplain Van Horn officiated at the funeral of the child of a captain at the post.
When the solemn service was over we carefully examined the Cemetery grounds and the holy work going on there under the direction of the chaplain.
The Cemetery was beautifully laid out in the form of a shield, on an irregular knoll, whose summit is forty or fifty feet above the surrounding plain.
It was arranged in sections, the graves, lose by the side of each other in rows, with graveled walks between.
In the center, on the top of the knoll, was a space reserved for a monument, in commemoration of the martyrs whose remains would be around it. The receiving-vault, as we have already observed,2 was a natural cave, in which we saw the coffins containing the remains of the Union raiders hung at Atlanta.
On the summit just above it, was made the sketch of Orchard
Knob and the Missionaries' Ridge, on page 161, at the time of this visit.
Then several hundred bodies were already gathered into the Cemetery, and that number of the tenants has since increased to thousands.3
On Friday morning,
Mr. Van Horne took us to the battle-ground of Chickamauga, with which he was well acquainted, having been a participant in the action there, and since then an explorer of it
1 this house was on Walnut Street, near Fort Sherman. It belonged to an Englishman named Richardson, who had espoused the, cause of the Confederates.
2 See page 802, volume II.
3 According to the report of the Quartermaster-General, under the title of “Roll of honor,” No. Xi. there were, a few months after our visit, 9,628 bodies buried in that cemetery, of whom 2,360 were unknown. Of the whole number, 718 were colored.
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