. (N. B. The battle-field was put into the bill.)

Gettysburg is the capital of Adams County: a town of about three
thousand souls,--or fifteen hundred, according to John Burns, who
assured me that half the population were Copperheads, and that they had
no souls. It is pleasantly situated on the swells of a fine undulating
country, drained by the headwaters of the Monocacy. It has no special
natural advantages,--owing its existence, probably, to the mere fact
that several important roads found it convenient to meet at this point,
to which accident also is due its historical renown. The circumstance
which made it a burg made it likewise a battle-field.

About the town itself there is nothing very interesting. It consists
chiefly of two-story houses of wood and brick, in dull rows, with
thresholds but little elevated above the street. Rarely a front yard or
blooming garden-plot relieves the dreary monotony. Occasionally there is
a three-story house, comfortable, no doubt and sufficiently expensive,
about which the one thing remarkable is the total absence of taste in
its construction. In this respect Gettysburg is but a fair sample of a
large class of American towns, the builders of which seem never once to
have been conscious that there exists such a thing as beauty.

John Burns, known as "the hero of Gettysburg," was almost the first
person whose acquaintance I made. He was sitting under the thick shade
of an English elm in front of the tavern. The landlord introduced him as
"the old man who took his gun and went into the first day's fight." He
rose to his feet and received me with sturdy politeness,--his evident
delight in the celebrity he enjoys twinkling through the veil of a
naturally modest demeanor.

"John will go with you and show you the different parts of the
battle-ground," said the landlord. "Will you, John?"

"Oh, yes, I'll go," said John, quite readily; and we set out at once.

A mile south of the town is Cemetery Hill, the head and front of an
important ridge, running two miles farther south to Round Top,--the
ridge held by General Meade's army during the great battles. The Rebels
attacked on three sides,--on the west, on the north, and on the east;
breaking their forces in vain upon this tremendous wedge, of which
Cemetery Hill may be considered the point. A portion of Ewell's Corps
had passed through the town several days before, and neglected to secure
that very commanding position. Was it mere acc