[Campton—Tuesday, 13 June 1865]
June 13. Weather wondrous. Arose at ¼ before 5—the hills were spread with dew and the world alive. Yesterday we drove to Cook’s Hill in the afternoon and saw the most beautiful mountain effect we have known upon our return. The mountains lay in dark blue upon the clear yellow west—the yellow gleams staining the river, the sheep and green hill in the foreground. While the east was covered with pink fleecy clouds upon the blue.
Mr Whittier told us of a prophecy he saw written down 25 years ago made by an old man in Sandwich, a village of the hills about 15 miles from here, predicting this present war. He was in the fields at noon-day when a darkness fell upon his vision and covered the earth and he beheld the divided nation and the freed-people and the final deliverance from the terrors of war. The whole series of events were clearly detailed & Mr Whittier could recall many of them. Only one was wrong. Foreign Intervention was foretold. From which thank Heaven we have been spared. The daughter of this prophet still lives in Amesbury. She is an excellent woman & is often impressed to speak in the Quaker church. “She is good & speaks from her experience, so I like to hear her,” he said, “but not knowing how to present her thoughts she says all she has to say in 15 minutes but talks an hour, so I listen 15 minutes. The rest I do not hear.”
