From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 5/21/1910, p. 10, c. 3

RIDING OVER BIG BATTLE GROUNDS
Secretary of War Dickinson Going to Seven Pines To-Day.
MEETS MANY OLD FRIENDS
General Wotherspoon, Head of War College, to Inspect Famous Sites.

Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickinson arrived in Richmond last night, and this morning started out to ride over the battlefields of Seven Pines and Savage’s Station. He is accompanied by Brigadier-General William W. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College. They will thoroughly inspect these historic sites of former campaigns, so as to inform themselves with first hand knowledge about the field now being studied by members of the War College who are now going over the lines of march of Lee and Grant in Virginia.

“I expect to ride horseback over a great amount of territory once the scene of war,” declared Secretary Dickinson last night, “and I may be away from Washington for some time. This trip will not only be of great official interest to me, but of personal interest as well. I was in the Confederate Army, though scarcely more than a boy. My fighting was done in Mississippi, and I never came as far up as Virginia.”

Meets Student Friend.

While here Secretary Dickinson was a guest of the Jefferson. Both he and General Wotherspoon were called on by friends in the city and shown the customary courtesies.

One of those who called on the secretary was a young Richmond man, who a short while ago was a student at one of the large Northern university law schools. While still in law school this student wrote to Secretary Dickinson, who studied law in Europe and is one of the greatest living American lawyers, asking for advice as to whether it would be a good idea to continue his study of the law abroad. Instead of getting a brief, curt note, as is usually the case when a plain citizen writes to a government dignitary, the law student was surprised and delighted to get in a very few days a five-page typewritten letter, full of friendly advice and counsel from Secretary Dickinson. It was the sort of letter that a father might write his son.

“Oh, yes, I remember that letter you wrote me,” said the secretary to this student who called on his last night, “for I am always interested in young men who are studying law. It is pretty hard to get along sometimes. I know how it is. I had to teach school in order to get to practice law, so you see I can understand the difficulties with which a young fellow is beset when he starts out to take law as his profession.”

Going to Malvern Hill.

A dispatch from Washington last night said:

“Secretary Dickinson left Washington this evening for Savage Station, Va., where he will join the officers attached to the War College, now on a tour of instruction through the Virginia battlefields of the Civil War. The secretary will to-morrow go with the party over the battlefields of Savage’s Station and of Seven Pines, and on Sunday will ride to Malvern Hill, a distance of twelve miles; thence to White Oak Swamp and Frazier’s Farm.

“The student officers will be accompanied by other officers specially designated for the purpose of explaining the movements of the troops in each of those engagements, thus giving them by actual observation a thorough knowledge of conditions that prevailed at the time of the battle.

“Secretary Dickinson is expected to return to Washington about next Tuesday, the remainder of the party returning the following Thursday.”

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