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| View from Malvern Hills.2 |
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party at work there had their tents pitched in the grove about Willis's Church (delineated on page 429).
We passed down the Quaker road through an almost level country, broken by ravines and water-courses for a mile or two, in the track of the fugitive Army of the Potomac, and at about one o'clock reached the beautiful open fields of Malvern Hills, where we had a pleasant reception at the old mansion — the Headquarters of McClellan (see picture on page 429)--by the family of Mr. Wyatt, the occupant.
In a deep shaded ravine, on the southeastern slope of the hill, where a copious stream of pure spring water flows out of a bank composed of a mass of perfect sea-shells and coral,1
beneath the roots of huge trees, we lunched; and at the small house, not far off, where Major Myer had his signal-station during the battle, we were furnished with rich buttermilk by a fat old colored woman, who said she was “skeered a‘ most to death” by the roar of the storm of battle.
After sketching the charming view southward from the grove in front of the mansion, we proceeded to explore the battle-ground on which the hottest of the fight occurred.
The theater of that conflict was on the farms of Cornelius
1 There were immense escalop and ordinary sized oyster-shells closely imbedded, with small ammonites and clam shells. The coral was white, and in perfect preservation. This layer of marine shells and the spring are more than a hundred feet above the James River. Such layers occur throughout the region between Richmond and the sea, sometimes near the surface, and often many feet below it. On the battle-ground of the Seven Pines we saw many pieces of coral that had lain so near the surface that the plow had turned them up.
2 this is one of the most extensive and charming views in all that region. The sketch comprehends the scenery around Turkey Bend, on the James River, looking southward from Malvern Hills mansion. From that position City Point (its place denoted by the three birds on the left) was visible, and the country up the Appomattox toward Petersburg. The two birds on the right denote the position of the gun-boats in the James that took part in the battle.
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