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Chattanooga, Tenn., Oct. 6, 1898. Dear Louie, We have had a very interesting day in the grand hickory and oak woods on
the hills and river bottoms within ten miles of Chattanooga, and along the battlefields of Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga
where some of the most terrible battles of the war were fought. The Government has made 30 or 40 miles or more of firm roads
along which we drove in a carriage with a guide. The Chickamauga National Park is 12 miles square and the positions of the
armies are marked by hundreds of monuments, most of them by the different states in memory of their generals and regiments.
All Missionary Ridge is marked in the same way, showing the points of attack of the divisions and corps.So also is Lookout
Mountain, while the National Cemetery with its thousands of graves is a beautiful place -- low-rolling hills all covered with
neatly kept lawns fresh and green. The natural trees, oaks of many kinds, beech, chestnut, elm, ash, hickory, etc make a beautiful
effect, only slightly marred by a few foreign ornamental shrubs. The great Chickamauga battlefield is also a place of low-rolling,
forested hills and smooth shallow valleys. Thousands of the buried dead are only marked by a number on a neat low marble post.
Some 60,000 volunteers were encamped here this summer. The last of them we saw marching to the cars this afternoon -- all
except one regiment left to guard the National Park, while we cannot get a tenth of a regiment to guard all the forests of
the nation. It has been very hot for the last three or four days here and in Alabama, but I stand it as well as Canby or
Sargent. Tomorrow we go back to Alabama at Huntsvilie to botanize a day or two. Then we start for Lexington, Kentucky, and
thence to New York, where I hope to get a lot of letters. We will reach N, Y. about the 11th. I sent a postal to Johnson letting
him know this. Page expects me to stop a good while at Boston -- says that many there want to see me -- and Sargent is going
to take me to Hunnewell's, etc. I think I may make a short run into the White Mountains or up to Lake Champlain to see the
woods in their autumn colors. I would like to go home by New Orleans and the Southern Pacific if the Yellow fever is frozen
out in time, This is doubtful. Even traveling hereabouts we are compelled to carry health certificates and have them stamped
at every place we stop at. The trip thus far has been not only pleasant though hard, but very instructive. I've learned to
know I don't know how many trees and shrubs and flowers. It is now about 9 o'clock. Canby and Sargent are upstairs working
with their plants. Rain is pouring and there is a dazzling lot of lightning. I must try to get a good sleep tonight, as it
has been unmercifully broken lately. Goodnight, Louie and Wanda and Helen darlings, goodnight. Love to Maggie. Envelope
addressed to Mrs. John Muir, Martinez, California. Postmarked Chattanooga, Tenn., Oct, 6, 1898, 9:30 P.M. 46 02479