1862 March 11 Fayetteville, West Virginia

[from the diary of Charles Hay, of the 23rd Ohio]

Fayetteville, March 11th, 1862.
Times are very dull. Were it not for the
cheering news that reaches us once in a
while, it would be an almost unbearable
kind of life to lounge around this dull
town and country, all the little interest of
which has long ago been exhausted. Scarcely
anything occurs to break the monotony.
Today I visited a romantic spot on New river,
where a stream called Wolf Creek flows into it,
some two miles from town. The relative position
of the two streams form an acute angle of the
point of land between, and which rises by
successive steps no less abrupt than lofty, from
the bed of the river, until a height of, I should
judge, 400 feet is attained. Standing on the
summit, which is but a narrow ridge, from
which you can gaze beneath on either side,
you can see far up and down New River, which
here flows through a gorge only wide enough to
admit the stream, and which is away beneath.
Wolf Creek before flowing into New River, descends
rapidly over the rocks some hundreds of feet. This,
with the sparkling water reflected in the rays of
the sun, and a beautiful little cascade, nearly
opposite, across New River, and which falls a
hundred feet in 2 or 3 successive leaps, these, alto-
=gether, form a grand sight, and well worth a
visit. The almost perpendicular hills on either
side of the river are covered with forests, now
mostly leafless, and protruding from the sides,
may be seen the edge of layers of rock, evidently the strata,
of which I counted some 5 or six.

MSS 13925

[transcription by Mary Roy Dawson Edwards]