Historic Gardens of Virginia 



the war very keenly. When he heard the enemy was approaching, 

 he left his home and ordered the butler to fire the house rather than 

 have it fall into their hands. My father, Alexander Bruce, who 

 was trained at the Virginia Military Institute under Thomas J. 

 Jackson, afterwards General Stonewall Jackson, collected all the 

 men at home on leave or unfit for service and held Staunton 

 Bridge, which prevented the enemy from coming through. Need- 

 less to say, when my mother used to tell me about it when I was 

 a child, I felt it was the most Important battle of the war, just 

 as I thought the Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Virginia, the 

 largest in the world. My grandfather, James C. Bruce, died the 

 day Lee surrendered, and said he took a grim satisfaction in leaving 

 the world on the day that meant the death of his class. General 

 Merritt, one of the youngest Federal generals, was stationed at 

 Berry Hill after the surrender. 



After the war, my father, Alexander Bruce, felt it would be 

 impossible to keep the garden as it should be kept, so he had It 

 removed, and trees set out matching the rest of the grounds, leaving 

 only the box, crepe myrtle and other shrubs, removing all the 

 walks and flower beds, though my mother and sister were in tears 

 at the thought of having to give It up. But there still remain 

 quantities of jonquils, hedges of box, and Interesting flowering 

 trees and shrubs. Many think the place was improved by removing 

 the garden and the cedar hedges, which divided the flowers from 

 the vegetables; these hedges also separated the vegetables from 

 the park, and the park from the orchard. The pictures will give 

 some Idea of the place as it now Is, with the house In the center of 

 the park. In the old garden were peonies, snowballs, smoke trees, 

 magnolias, Japan apples, flowering apples, crab apples, jasmines, 

 honeysuckles on frames, crepe myrtles, dogwoods, Roses of 

 Sharon, fringe trees, red buds and many mimosas. Every tree 

 had something planted beneath to come up in the spring, such as 

 double and single jonquils, hyacinths, snowdrops, peonies, or 



"^^^'^^^- Ellen Bruce Crane. 



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