April 29 — I was on a spring ramble to-day on Peter’s Mountain, about three miles west of Gordonsville. The mountain is smooth, but steep; the greater part of it is arable and some portion of it under cultivation. Peter’s Mountain is a sugar-loaf knob rising from a range of hills or low mountains known as South Mountain; the range runs nearly parallel with the Blue Ridge, and is about twenty miles distant. The peak I was on far exceeds in elevation every other part of the whole range, and the crest of the peak, which is cleared and under cultivation, affords a grand and magnificent panoramic view of all the surrounding country. To the north, east, and south a broad expanse of undulating country stretches away to the dim distance, until the bending blue stoops down and kisses the verdant hills. A thousand fields are spread over the variegated and diversified sea of living green that was basking in the golden, genial sunshine of spring; here and there a dash of snowy spray is cast up by an orchard with a treasure of blooms in full array that gleam like dazzling islands of snow swimming in an emerald sea.
Five or six miles to the east the white tents of General Lee’s army looked like vast herds of roaming sheep taking their midday siesta on carpets of nature’s brightest and loveliest green. To the west the Blue Ridge lifts its bumpy and notched crest skyward, with its hollowy and ridged side studded with sunny fields and rural homes that hang like pictures on a crumpled, mossy wall. One hundred miles from where I stood, and in a southwest direction, I saw the Peaks of Otter, the highest points of the Blue Ridge, in Virginia. With graceful sweep and gentle curve they shoot their storm-swept crests far up into the blue realm, piercing the home of the clouds. The Peaks of Otter are in the northwestern part of Bedford County. There is a signal station on Peter’s Mountain and the red flag has been fluttering all afternoon, a sure indication that there will be some important movements on hand before many days roll by. I was at the station this afternoon; while I was there I saw some troops in the distance, marching in the northwestern part of Louisa County. I asked the signal man who they were, and he told me that it was General Longstreet’s corps coming up from the direction of Louisa Court House and moving toward Gordonsville.
