Looking off to the south we saw the same fine old southern mansion that was there in war times. We felt remorse for many foraging expeditions in which the fruit, sweet potatoes, ducks and chickens had been confiscated for the cause of Uncle Sam.
We thought we would go and call on our old neighbors and make the _amende honorable_.
The fine old southern lady freely forgave us with a graciousness characteristic of the women of the south. An invitation to lunch was extended and accepted. George, a colored boy, was told to go down the “Run” to the mill and tell her son, the colonel (no rank under a colonelcy is recognized in Virginia), to come up to the house and meet some of the old Second New York.
We lunched on the broad veranda and exchanged reminiscences of the days when we were neighbors and enemies, and as the colonel sipped that favorite and refreshing beverage of the south, a mint julep, he told of his wounds at Manassas and how friends had helped him through the lines and back to his old home right under the guns of our fort, where he was secreted until his recovery. His presence there was not unknown to the general commanding the Union forces, who, like a chivalric knight of old, kept the secret for the sake of the mother, and furnished guards to keep intruders away from the house.
The reader must not infer that there was one drop of traitorous blood in the officer’s veins. His name I am not at liberty to divulge, but it is no breach of confidence to say that he was one of the most brilliant generals in the army of the Potomac, whose loyalty was proven on many a bloody battlefield.
Across the valley to the east from Fort Worth, on the Mount Vernon road, was a large fort called Fort Lyon, where the gallant old 94th New York Infantry spent the winter and spring of ’62. An explosion of ammunition in one of the magazines nearly destroyed the fort in 1863, killing and wounding many of the garrison and causing the earth to tremble for miles.
Fort Lyon was nearly on the left of the defenses south of the Potomac, while Fort Marcy, about four miles west of Georgetown and near the famous Chain bridge, guarded the right flank.
Between the two, running parallel with the Potomac, along Arlington heights, was a perfect chain of forts and earthworks, the names of which many northern New York veterans will recall, such as Forts Ellsworth, Ward, Blenkner, Albany, Runyon, Corcoran, Haggerty, Tillinghast, Whipple, Woodbury, Greig, Cass, Dekalb (afterwards Fort Smith), Strong and many others. The Fifth New York Heavy Artillery assisted in the erection of the last named.