Brief description:
There are many strange sights in Virginia, strange, moving, and wonderful. There are the baroque Cyclops Towers, formations of rock rising raggedly into the sky like something out of the Mesozoic Era; and near New Market, the gorgeous caverns underground, without end, honeycombing themselves deep into the red clay beneath Virginia; and the blue grottos, near Harrisburg, where Confederate soldiers success;... the grave of Stonewall Jackson in Lexington, Harper’s Ferry, Appomattox, the Wilderness....
But the strangest of all sights is a tree on the northern outskirts of a small town near Richmond, named Truman Gap. Truman Gap, today, merely exists, but at one point during the War between the States, it was so important that the South might have won because of it.....
When you approach Truman’s Gap, coming down from Washington, you spot the tree instantly. It is a shaggy monster, twisted and grotesque, intertwined like the agony tree in Gethsemane. It is still remarkably healthy and it hangs over the roadway so that you pass beneath its very branches. They are long and thick and not too high, those first ones.
You are impressed with this before ever you read the identification sign. There is something ominous about that tree, it can be felt. It was built for death. Nothing soft or pretty about it. Monstrous, grim, and hard. The marker says simply:
THE JUDAS TREE
General Robert E. Lee Visited this Spot in July, 1865,
to Erase Virginia’s Shame and Sorrow.
Well, there you are. There’s a story behind it, and the sign, instead of helping you out, only whets your appetite....
But the strangest of all sights is a tree on the northern outskirts of a small town near Richmond, named Truman Gap. Truman Gap, today, merely exists, but at one point during the War between the States, it was so important that the South might have won because of it.....
When you approach Truman’s Gap, coming down from Washington, you spot the tree instantly. It is a shaggy monster, twisted and grotesque, intertwined like the agony tree in Gethsemane. It is still remarkably healthy and it hangs over the roadway so that you pass beneath its very branches. They are long and thick and not too high, those first ones.
You are impressed with this before ever you read the identification sign. There is something ominous about that tree, it can be felt. It was built for death. Nothing soft or pretty about it. Monstrous, grim, and hard. The marker says simply:
THE JUDAS TREE
General Robert E. Lee Visited this Spot in July, 1865,
to Erase Virginia’s Shame and Sorrow.
Well, there you are. There’s a story behind it, and the sign, instead of helping you out, only whets your appetite....
Publication
Argosy Magazine, May 13,1939