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from which a conflagration might extend to the whole business portion of Richmond. In vain Mayor Mayo and a committee of citizens had remonstrated against this reckless military order. The warehouses were fired; the flames seized on the neighbouring buildings and soon involved a wide and widening area; the conflagration passed rapidly beyond control; and in this mad fire, this wild, unnecessary destruction of their property the citizens of Richmond had a fitting souvenir of the imprudence and recklessness of the departing Administration.

Morning broke on a scene never to be forgotten. It was a strange picture-impossible to describe the smoke and glare of fire mingled with the golden beams of the rising sun. The great warehouse on the Basin was wrapped in flames; the fire was reaching to whole blocks of buildings; and as the sun rose majestically above the horizon, it burnished the fringe of smoke with lurid and golden glory. Curious crowds watched the fire. Its roar sounded in the ears; it leaped from street to street; pillagers were busy at their vocation, and in the hot breath of the fire were figures as of demons contending for prey.

The sun was an hour or more above the horizon, when suddenly there ran up the whole length of Main street the cry of "Yankees!" "Yankees!" The upper part of this street was choked with crowds of pillagers -men provided with drays, others rolling barrels up the street, or bending under heavy burdens, and intermixed with them women and children with smaller lots of plunder in bags, baskets, tubs, buckets, and tin-pans. As the cry of "Yankees" was raised, this motley crowd tore up the street, cursing, screaming, trampling upon each other, alarmed by an enemy not yet in sight, and madly seeking to extricate themselves from imaginary dangers. Presently, beyond this crowd, following up the tangled mass of plunderers, but not pressing or interfering with them, was seen a small body of Federal cavalry, riding steadily along. Forty Massachusetts troopers, despatched by Gen. Weitzel to investigate the condition of affairs, had ridden without let or hindrance into Richmond. At the corner of Eleventh street they broke into a trot for the public square, and in a few moments their guidons were planted on the Capitol, and fluttered there a strange spectacle in the early morning light.

A few hours thereafter, and Weitzel's troops were pouring through the streets of the city. A lady, who witnessed the grand Federal entrée, and has given a very graphic account of it, thus describes a portion of the scene: "Stretching from the Exchange Hotel to the slopes of Church Hill, down the hill, through the valley, up the ascent to the hotel, was the array, with its unbroken line of blue, fringed with bright bayonets. Strains of martial music, flushed countenances, waving swords, betokened the victorious army. As the line turned at the Exchange Hotel into the upper street, the movement was the signal for a wild burst of cheers

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from each regiment. Shouts from a few negroes were the only responses. Through throngs of sullen spectators; along the line of fire; in the midst of the horrours of a conflagration, increased by the explosion of shells left by the retreating army; through curtains of smoke; through the vast ærial auditorium convulsed with the commotion of frightful sounds, moved the garish procession of the grand army, with brave music, and bright banners and wild cheers. A regiment of negro cavalry swept by the hotel As they turned the street corner they drew their sabres with savage shouts and the blood mounted even in my woman's heart with quick throbs of defiance." *

Meanwhile the fire raged with unchecked fury. The entire business part of the city was on fire; stores, warehouses, manufactories, mills, depots, and bridges-all, covering acres; the continuous thunder of exploding shells sounded in the sea of fire; and in the midst of it was the long, threatening, hostile army entering to seize its prey. All during the forenoon, flame and smoke and burning brands and showers of blazing sparks filled the air, spreading still further the destruction, until it had swept before it every bank, every auction store, every insurance office, nearly every commission house, and most of the fashionable stores. The atmosphere was almost choking; men, women, and children crowded into the square of the Capitol for a breath of pure air; but it was not to be obtained even there, and one traversed the green slopes blinded by cinders and strug gling for breath. Already piles of furniture had been collected here, dragged from the ruins of burning houses; and in uncouth arrangements, made with broken tables and bureaus, were huddled women and children, with no other home, with no other resting place in Heaven's great hollowness.

Some tardy attempts were made to arrest the conflagration; in the afternoon the military authorities organized the crowds of negroes as a fire corps; but the few steam-engines that played upon the flames were not sufficient to check their progress. It was late in the evening when the fire had burned itself out. It had consumed the most important part of Richmond. Commencing at the Shockoe warehouse, the fire radiated front and rear, and on two wings, burning down Main street, half way between Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets, and back to the river, through Cary and all the intermediate streets. Westward, on Main, the fire was stayed at Ninth street, sweeping back to the river. On the north side of Main the flames were stayed between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets. From this point the flames raged on the north side of Main up to Eighth street, and back to Bank street. The pencil of the surveyor could not have more distinctly marked out the business portion of the city.

The evening breezes had turned the course of the fire; and as these

"Nathalie, in Norfolk Virginian.

still continued, heavy mist-clouds hung upon the horizon, or streamed upwards on the varying current of the winds. As night came on, there was a painful reaction after the day's terrible excitement; a strange quiet fell upon the blackened city and its scenes of destruction. It was the quiet of a great desolation. Groups of women and children crawled under shelters of broken furniture in the Capitol square; hundreds of homeless persons laid down to sleep in the shadows of the ruins of Richmond; and worn out by excitement, exhausted as by the spasm of a great battle, men watched for the morrow with the dull sense that the work of years had been ruined, and that all they possessed on earth had been swept away.

While Richmond was filled with horrour and destruction, and the smoke of its torment ascended to the skies, very different scenes were taking place far away in the cities of the North. It was a strange reverse to the picture we have been contemplating. With those fervours and shows characteristic of the Northern mind, Washington and New York were celebrating the downfall of the Confederate capital. Bells were rung; wild and enthusiastic congratulations ran along the street; and vast crowds collected, whose fantastic exhibitions of joy, not content with huzzas, cheers, and dancing in the streets, broke out into a blasphemous singing of hymns of the church. In New York twenty thousand persons in the open air sung the doxology. There was, of course, an unlimited display of flags; and as evidence of this characteristic exhibition it is said that half an hour after the news of the fall of Richmond was known, not a single large flag in the whole city of New York was left unpurchased. These symbols of loyalty not only floated over houses, but were fastened to carts, stages and wagons. The newspapers were mostly occupied with spread-eagles and maps of Richmond. The World expressed the opinion that the event of the day "more fully justified exuberant rejoicing than any previous achievement in the history of the war." The New York Herald-the organ par excellence of Yankee wind-went further, and declared that the taking of Richmond was "one of the grandest triumphs that had crowned human efforts for centuries."

Such stuff was characteristic of Northern newspapers. But looking to facts we shall find a more precise language in which to describe the achievement of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the fall of Richmond.

It was simply the consummation of the disgrace of this commanderthat he should have taken eleven months to capture a position at no time held by more than one third of his forces, having lost in the enterprise in killed and wounded more than double the numbers actually in arms against him! This sentence may grate on Northern pride; but it is founded upon plain, unyielding figures; it is the inexorable statement of the law of proportions; it can be no more contested than a mathematical demonstration. As long as the intelligent of this world are persuaded of

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the opinion that a great General is he who accomplishes his purposes with small, but admirably drilled armies; who defeats large armies with small ones; who accomplishes great military results by strategy, more than by fighting, who makes of war an intellectual exercise rather than a match of brute force, that title will be given to Robert E. Lee above all men in America, and the Confederate commander will be declared to have been much greater in defeat than Grant in his boasted victory.

The adulation of partisans has no permanent place in the records of glory. The office of the historian is to reduce the exaggerations of the present, and that without reference to the passionate criticisms of the times in which he lives. If the fact be that the North has produced no great General in this war; that the exhibitions of generalship, chivalry, humanity, and all that noble sentimentalism that properly belongs to the state of war have been more largely on the Confederate side; that the Northern people have exhibited gross materialism in the war, have excluded that noble spirituality common to the great conflicts of civilized nations, and worshipped the grossest types of physical power, the fault is in themselves, and not in the pen that writes these things.

CHAPTER XLII.

PUBLIO FEELING IN RICHMOND AFTER EVACUATION DAY.-PRESIDENT DAVIS' PROCLAMATION AT DANVILLE.-NEW AND SANGUINE THEORY OF CONFEDERATE DEFENCE.-MORAL EFFECT OF THE FALL OF RICHMOND.—RETREAT AND FINAL SURRENDER OF LEE'S ARMY.-CROSSING OF THE APPOMATTOX.-EXPLOSION OF MAGAZINES. THE WAGON-TRAIN FROM RICHMOND.-ORDER of grant's PURSUIT.-GEN. LEE'S NEW HOPES. THEY ARE DASHED AT AMELIA COURT-HOUSE.-THE CONFEDERATES IN A STARVING CONDITION.-LEE ABANDONS THE ROUTE TO DANVILLE AND MAKES FOR LYNCHBURG, BY WAY OF FARMVILLE.—SUFFERINGS ON THE MARCH.-DEMORALIZATION OF THE TROOPS.-SOME SPIRITED EPISODES.THE ACTION OF SAILORS' CREEK.-THE CONFEDERATES IN THE VICINITY OF FARMVILLE.— AFFAIRS WITH THE ENEMY.-THE CONFEDERATES RETREAT TO APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE WITHOUT MOLESTATION.-SENSE OF RELIEF AMONG THE TROOPS.-OMINOUS SOUNDS OF CANNON. THE EXIT TO LYNCHBURG CLOSED BY SHERIDAN.-DESPERATE ADVENTURE OF GORDON'S CORPS.-THE RECOIL.-A FLAG OF TRUCE ON THE SCENE.-CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GENS. GRANT AND LEE, LEADING TO THE SURRENDER OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. THE CONFERENCE AT M'LEAN'S HOUSE.-GEN. LEE ANNOUNCING THE TERMS OF SURRENDER.-A TOUCHING SCENE AT HIS HEADQUARTERS.—GEN. LEE'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY.-MAGNANIMOUS AND DELICATE BEHAVIOUR OF GRANT.GEN. LEE'S RETURN TO HIS HOME.-GREAT EXULTATION AT WASHINGTON.-SECRETARY STANTON'S CONGRATULATIONS.-SCENE AT THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE.-CHARACTERISTIO SPEECH AND LAST JOKE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

THE Federal occupants of Richmond no doubt thought the people very submissive to the new authority. They saw no sign of violence, and they heard no expression of defiance. The population of Richmond moved mechanically before their new masters. But there was, for some days, an undercurrent of eager, excited thought which the Federals did not perecive; citizens whispered among themselves, and went around the streetcorners to relate in low tones to each other some rumour eagerly grasped for the new hope it contained. Thus it was told in whispers that Gen. Lee had won a great victory on his retreat, that Johnston had struck Sherman a mortal blow, or that some other extravagant event had happened, some sudden relief of the falling fortunes of the Confederacy. It is not easy for men to descend at once to the condition of despair.

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