CHAP. XXXVIII.]

THE NORFOLK NAVY YARD.

87 but it was a totally inadequate measure of the intrinsic value of the war material at that moment. The South was armed and the North disarmed. The indirect consequences were of incalculable importance. When Captain M'Cauley gave orders that the frigate Merrimack should not sail, and thereby left her to be raised and converted into an iron-clad ram, he closed the James River, and prepared unspeakable disasters for the subsequent peninsular campaign.

Report of the Senate Committee on the subject.

A select committee of the Senate of the United States, directed to inquire into these subjects, reported that, in their judgment, (1.) The ad ministration of Mr. Buchanan was guilty of neglect in not taking extraordinary care and employing every possible means to protect and defend the Norfolk navy yard after indications of danger had manifested themselves; (2.) The administration of Mr. Lincoln can not be held blameless for suffering thirty-seven days to elapse after he came into power before making a movement for the defense of the yard; (3.) Captain M'Cauley was highly censurable for neglecting to send the Merrimack from the yard as he was ordered, and also for scuttling the ships and preparing to abandon the yard before any attack was made or seriously threatened, when he should have defended it and the property intrusted to him, repelling force by force, as he was instructed to do if the occasion should present itself. Captain Paulding was likewise considered by the committee to be censurable for ordering the property to be burned and the yard abandoned before taking proper means to satisfy himself that any necessity for such measures existed.

Thus Virginia severed her connection with that repub lic which her great men of the former generation had

88

RICHMOND THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL.

Richmond as the

ital.

[SECT. VII.

done so much to establish, and which she had so long ruled. She accepted a measure leading at once to civil war, to public calamity, and domestic sorrow. Few social lessons can be more instructive than her exConfederate cap- periences in the four following years while Richmond had the vain glory of being the capital of the new Confederacy-experiences which have been recorded by her own people. Let us listen to what one of her daughters relates-the serpent beguiled her and she did eat-in a very instructive little volume she tells us how the apple of secession tasted.

The delight of its

cession.

She says that during the Secession Convention the hall of meeting became the favorite place of reinhabitants at se- sort of the women, who occasionally engaged in political discussions in the intervals of the meetings of the members. Every woman in Richmond was a politician. On the ordinance of secession being passed, the people were in a delirium of joy; the cannon were saluting, the bells ringing, neighbors shaking hands with each other, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs. In the evening there was an illumination, the favorite form being the Southern cross; the sky was alive with Roman candles and variegated rockets. At this time Richmond was in a very prosperous condition; its trade was flourishing, articles of food and clothing were very cheap, and pauperism was actually unknown. All this was, however, considered as nothing in comparison with the prosperity which it was expected that secession would bring. The clergy, forgetting the terrible denunciation that Jefferson had formerly pronounced against slavery, declared that the smiles of God were upon the cause; and it was thought to be more than a mere omen that on the Sunday following the passage of the ordi nance there occurred in the lesson for the day, as read in the Episcopal churches, the words "I will

Secession Sunday.

CHAP. XXXVIII.] SOCIAL CONDITION OF RICHMOND.

89

remove far off from you the Northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder parts to the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savor shall come up, because he hath done great things."

Soon, however, the population began to change, and Gradual changes in strange faces appeared in the streets. SolRichmond society. diers from the Cotton States were pouring in. They were followed by that loose society, male and female, which always hovers round armies. The first regiments that appeared were from South Carolina. They received a hearty welcome. The gay throng who had lately crowded the halls of the Secession Convention was now wandering through the camps. But the pride of the young ladies was touched to the quick by the gasconade of their new friends. "We have come here to fight the battles of you Virginians." Estrangement was embittered by the reflection that the blows so wantonly provoked by South Carolina must fall first on Virginia. But, though the Carolinians gave no offense, save that arising from their conceit, it was not so with the troops of the Southwest. The New Orleans Zouaves stole whatever they could lay their hands upon, robbed and insulted citizens in the public streets, caroused riotously in the restaurants and hotels, and told the proprietors to charge the bills to the Confederate government.

The president and

An elegant establishment was provided for President Davis. Receptions like those in the White Richmond life. House at Washington were held. It was necessary that every man should appear in the streets in a military garb. There was the réveille in the morning, and taps at night. In the autumn of that first year of the war the weather was more beautiful than for a long time had been known; the Indian summer brought an exquisite dreamy haze; the gorgeous foliage of the forest

90

SOCIAL CONDITION OF RICHMOND.

[SECT. VII.

was absolutely magnificent. This was while M'Clellan was holding his great army at Washington waiting for the weather to improve. The president of the Confederacy was often seen riding on horseback through the city with one of his children before him. It was thought to be an affecting sight.

Difficulties in do

By degrees, however, things changed. Speculators, Decline of patriotic gamblers, and persons of bad character sentiment. flocked into the new metropolis. The blockade began to be felt. The vilest extortions were practiced by dealers in provisions. They ran up the price of coffee to fifty dollars per pound. Dried leaves of the sage, willow, currant, were substituted for tea. The president declined in public esteem; his arbitrary control of military affairs irritated the chief generals. It was remarked that the first anniversary of the fall of Sumter was signalized by the fall of Pulaski. Then came M'Clellan's peninsular campaign, and trouble in the domestic economy of Richmond. It mestic economy. was very hard, our fair informant plaintively says, to procure a dinner at all. Then followed the Chickahominy battles. "The month of July can never be forgotten; we lived in one immense hospital; we breathed the vapors of a charnel-house." The Confeder ate Congress, on M'Clellan's approach, had run away; when the members returned in August after he was gone, they were unmercifully twitted for their flight by the women. The chief magistrate, embittered by the course of events, had now become a stern autocrat; he kept both houses of Congress in mortal terror. A public clamor arose that his cabinet should be comes unpopular, changed. He turned a deaf ear to it. It was said that his obstinacy was strengthened by the flattery of the parasites around him-the dependents on his will. In his first report to the permanent Congress he

The president be

CHAP. XXXVIII.]

A gloom settles on the city.

RICHMOND AS A CAPITAL.

91

had represented the financial condition as one of safety; "in less than twelve months the currency was at a discount of a thousand per cent." There was a pitiable and necessary arti- scarcity of the most necessary articles; for cles very scarce. instance, paper could hardly be had. The old and respectable residents, who had long lived in ease on their competent resources, were now reduced to dire necessities. The women turned their well-worn dresses upside down and inside out to pass them off as new, and grimly jested at the seedy aspect of their male friends, whose garb was incapable of that device. Decayed gentility saw with indignation the splendid carriages of upstart speculators rolling through the streets, and listened perhaps with too much credulity to stories of the vast fortunes wrung by contractors out of the impoverished state. The cheerful sounds of the piano became less frequent in the houses; they were replaced by the hum of the spinning-wheel. Not without curiosity, mingled with sympathy, do we read the declaration of our fair Confederate friend, that "the wardrobe of a lady became enormously expensive at last." "For an ordinary calico, for which we formerly paid 12 cents a yard, we were forced to pay from thirty to thirty-five dollars; for an English or French chintz the price was fifty dollars a yard. A nice French merino or mohair dress was from eight hundred to a thousand dollars. A cloak of fine cloth was worth from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. A pair of Balmoral boots for ladies, two hundred and fifty dollars. French gloves sold at from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and seventy-five dollars per pair. Irish linen commanded from fifty to one hundred dollars per yard." But it is needless to continue this catalogue of feminine sorrows: something infinitely sadder was coming.

Extravagant prices of clothing.