CHAPTER XXXVII.
DIES IRÆ—DIES ILLA.
It is nowise within the scope of these sketches to detail that memorable siege of Petersburg, lasting nearly one year. It were needless to relate here, how—for more than ten months—that long southern line of defense, constantly threatened and almost as constantly assailed, was held. Men know now that it was not by strength, but by sleepless watch and dogged endurance, that less than 30,000 worn men—so dotted along works extending near forty miles, that at points there was one soldier to every rod of earthwork—held their own, even against the earlier onsets. Men now realize why the Federal general—failing in every separate effort to buy a key-position, even at the cost of six lives for one—was forced to sit down sullenly and wait the slow, but sure, process of attrition.
These matters are now stamped upon the minds of readers, on both sides of the Potomac. In the North they had voluminous reports of every detail; and the cessation of interest elsewhere gave full leisure to study them. In the South, 30,000 earnest historians from the trenches were sought, each one by eager crowds; and the story of every cannonade and skirmish and charge, told in honest but homely words, was burned into the memory of intent listeners.
Slowly that summer wore itself away. Steadily that bloody history traced itself out; punctuated, now by many a fierce and sudden rush of crowding Federals—ever beaten back with frightful loss; again by rare sorties from our line, when our leaders saw the chance to strike some telling blow.
But spite of care in those leaders and superhuman endurance in the men, the southern troops were worn with watching and steadily melting away. Close, ceaseless fighting thinned their ranks; there were no more men—even the youngest of the land, or its first borns—to take the places of the lost veterans. General Grant's words were strictly true—"the South had robbed the cradle and the grave!" The boasted army of the North, led by her latest-chosen champion and strategist, was kept at bay by a skeleton of veterans, barely held together by the worn-out sinews and undeveloped muscle of old age and infancy.
Then the fall of Atlanta came!
The people were not to be deceived by platitudes about "strategic purposes," or empty nothings about "a campaign to nullify it." They had gotten now beyond that; and saw the terrible blow that had been dealt them in all its naked strength. They felt that an army that had failed to check Sherman, when it was behind strong works, would hardly do so in the open field. They felt that he could now at his leisure bore into the coveted heart of our territory; that the long-attempted "bisection of the rebellion" was accomplished; that further aid, or supplies, from that section was impossible. And then the people of Richmond turned once more with unfailing pride, but lessening hope, toward the decreasing bands that still held their own gates secure. But they saw how the deadly strain was telling upon these; that the end was near.
But even now there was no weak yielding—no despairing cry among the southern people. They looked at the coming end steadily and unflinchingly; and now, for the first time, they began to speculate upon the possible loss of their beloved Capital. It was rumored in Richmond that General Lee had told the President that the lines were longer than he could hold; that the sole hope was to evacuate the town and collect the armies at some interior point for a final struggle that might yet sever the bonds, ever closing tighter and tighter upon us. And the rumor added that Mr. Davis peremptorily and definitely rejected this counsel; declaring that he would hold the city, at any cost and any risk.
For once—whatever cause they had to credit these reports—the popular voice was louder on the side of the unpopular President than on that of the idolized general. The tremendous efforts to capture the Capital; the superhuman exertions made to defend it in the last four years,had made Richmond the cause! People argued that if Richmond was lost, the State of Virginia was lost, too; that there was no point in North Carolina where the army could make a stand, for even that "interior line" then became a frontier. Beyond this the people felt the moral effect of such a step; and that the army, as such, could never be carried out of Virginia. And with the ceaseless discussion of this question, came the first yearnings for peace propositions.
To this extremity, the South had been confident and fixed in her views. Cheated of her hopes of foreign intervention, she had yet believed her ability to work out her own oracle; through blood and toil—even ruin, perhaps—but still to force a peace at last. But now the popular voice was raised in answer to the vague words of peace that found their way over the Potomac. If there be any desire in the North for cessation of this strife, said the people, for God's sake let us meet it half way. Even the Congress seemed impressed with the necessity of meeting any overtures from the North, before it was too late and our dire strait should be known there. But it was already too late; and the resultless mission of Mr. Stephens to Fortress Monroe proved that the Washington Government now saw plainly that it could force upon us the terms it made the show of offering.
The failure of this mission, no less than the great mystery in which the Government endeavored to wrap it, produced a decided gloom among the thinking classes; and it reacted upon the army as well. The soldiers now began to lose hope for the first time. They saw they were fighting a hydra; for as fast as they lopped off heads in any direction, fresh ones sprang up in others. They began, for the first time, to feel the contest unequal; and this depressing thought—added to the still greater privations following the loss of Georgia—made desertion fearfully common, and threatened to destroy, by that cause, an army that had withstood every device of the enemy.
And so the fall wore into winter; and the news from General Hood's lines only added to the gloom. After the truce of ten days, following the fall of Atlanta, Hood had moved around and gotten almost in Sherman's rear. For a moment there was great exultation, for it was believed he would destroy the enemy's communications and then attack him, or force an attack on ground of his own choosing. Great was the astonishment and great the disappointment, when Hood moved rapidly to Dalton and thence into Alabama, leaving the whole country south of Virginia entirely open, defenseless, and at Sherman's mercy.
And, as usual, in moments of general distress, Mr. Davis was blamed for the move. He had, it was said, removed Joe Johnston at the very moment his patient sagacity was to bear its fruits; he had been in Hood's camp and had of course planned this campaign—a wilder and more disastrous one than the detachment of Longstreet, for Knoxville. Whosesoever may have been the plan, and whatever may have been its ultimate object, it failed utterly in diverting Sherman from the swoop for which he had so long hovered. For, while the small bulwark of Georgia was removed—and sent in Quixotic joust against distant windmills—the threatening force, relieved from all restraint, and fearing no want of supplies in her fertile fields, pressed down, "Marching thro' Georgia."
Meantime Hood, with no more serious opposition than an occasional skirmish, crossed the Tennessee at Florence, about the middle of November. The enemy fell back before him, toward Nashville, until it seemed as if his intent was to draw Hood further and further away from therealpoint of action—Sherman's advance. On the 30th of November, however, Thomas made a stand at Franklin; and then resulted a terrific battle, in which the Confederates held the field, with the loss of one-third of the army. Six of our generals lay amid their gallant dead on that unhappy field; seven more were disabled by wounds, and one was a prisoner. The enemy's loss was stated at far less than ours; and he retired into Nashville, to which place our army laid siege on the 1st of December.
Weakened by the long march and more by the terrible losses of Franklin; ill-supplied and half-fed, Hood's army was compelled to rely upon the enemy's want of supplies driving him out. On the 15th of December he attacked our whole line, so furiously as to break it at every point. Hood's defeat was complete; he lost his whole artillery—over fifty pieces—most of his ordnance and many of his supply trains. In the dreadful retreat that followed, General Forrest's vigorous covering alone saved the remnant of that devoted army; and on the 23d of January, 1865—when he had brought them once more into temporary safety—General Hood issued a farewell order, stating that he was relieved at his own request.
Gallant, frank and fearless even in adversity, he did not shirk the responsibility of the campaign; declaring, that disastrous and bitter as it had been, he had believed it best.
So ended all real resistance in the South and West. The enemy had gained the back door to Richmond, had shattered its supports and had marched on to the rear of those strongholds that had so long defied his power from the sea.
It was but a question of time, when Charleston and Savannah should fall; and even the most hopeful could see that Virginia was the only soil on which resistance still walked erect.
Meanwhile, the winter was passing in Richmond in most singular gayety. Though the hostile lines were so close that the pickets could "chaff" each other without raising their voices, still both had learned that direct attacks in front were not practicable; and such was the state of the roads all around Petersburg, that no movement out of works could be attempted. Therefore more active fighting had for the moment ceased; numbers of young officers could get to Richmond, for a few days at a time; and these came worn and tired from camp and famished for society and gayety of some sort. And the younger ladies of Richmond—ready as they ever were to aid and comfort the soldier boys with needle, with bandage, or with lint—were quite as ready now to do all they could in plans for mutual pleasure.
They only felt the strain was for the moment remitted; they recked not that it was to come to-morrow for the final crush; and they enjoyed to-day with all the recklessness of long restraint.
Parties were of nightly occurrence. Not the brilliant and generous festivals of the olden days of Richmond, but joyous and gay assemblages of a hundred young people, who danced as though the music of shells had never replaced that of the old negro fiddler—who chatted and laughed as if there were no to-morrow, with its certain skirmish, and its possible blanket for winding-sheet. For the beaux at these gatherings were not only the officers on leave from Petersburg; the lines drawn close to the city furnished many an acquisition, who would willingly do ten miles in and out, on horseback through the slush and snow, for onedeux tempswith "somebody in particular."
And many a brave fellow had ridden direct from the ball-room into the fight. I can well recall poor H. now, as he looked when last I saw him in life. Ruddy and joyous, with his handsome face one glow of pleasure, he vaulted gaily to his saddle under the bright moon at midnight. Curbing his restive horse, and waving a kiss to the bright faces pressed against the frosty pane, his clearau revoir!echoed through the silent street, and he was off.
Next morning a country cart brought his lifeless body down Main street, with the small blue mark of a bullet in the middle of the smooth, clear, boyish brow. Never leaving his saddle, he had ridden into a picket fight, and a chance shot had cut short the life of so much promise.
But it is not meant that these parties entailed any waste of those supplies, vital alike to citizen and soldier. They were known as "Starvations;" and all refreshments whatever were forbidden, save what could be drawn from the huge pitcher of "Jeems' River" water, surrounded with its varied and many-shaped drinking utensils. Many of these, even in the houses of the best provided, were of common blown glass, with a greenish tinge that suggested a most bilious condition of the blower. The music was furnished by some of the ancient negro minstrels—so dear to the juvenile southern heart in days gone by; or more frequently by the delicate fingers of some petted and favored belle. And never, amid the blare of the best trained bands, the popping of champagne, and the clatter of forks overpaté de foies gras, was there more genuine enjoyment and more courtly chivalry to thebeau sexe, than at these primitive soirées.
The "Starvations" were not the only amusements. Amateur theatricals and tableaux again became the rage in midwinter; and talent of no contemptible grade was displayed on many an impromptu stage. And that especial pet horror of supersensitive godliness—the godless German cotillion—even forced itself into the gayeties of the winter. Great was the wrath of the elect against all amusements of the kind—but chiefest among outrages was this graceless German. But despite the denunciations, the ridicule, and even the active intervention of one or two ministers, the young soldiers and their chosen partners whirled away as though they had never heard a slander or a sermon.
I have already endeavored to show how a certain class in Richmond deprecated gayety of all kinds two years before. These, of course, objected now; and another class still was loud and violent against it. But, said the dancers, we do the fighting—we are the ones who are killed—and if we don't object, why in the deuce should you? Cooped up in camp, with mud and musty bacon for living, and the whistling of Miniés and whooing of shells for episode, we long for some pleasure when we can get off. This is the sole enjoyment we have, and we go back better men in every way for it.
This was rather unanswerable argument; and the younger ladies were all willing to back it; somalgrélong faces and a seeming want of the unities, the dancing went on.
We have heard a great dealpost-bellumbathos about that strange mixture of gay waltzes, and rumble of dead-cart and ambulance; but one must have heard the sounds together before he can judge; and no one who was not in and of that peculiar, and entirely abnormal, state of society, can understand either its construction, or its demands.
But the short spasm of gayety, after all, was only the fitful and feverish symptom of the deadly weakness of the body politic. It was merely superficial; and under it was a fixed and impenetrable gloom. The desertions from the army were assuming fearful proportions, that no legislation or executive rigor could diminish; supplies of bare food were becoming frightfully scarce, and even the wealthiest began to be pinched for necessaries of life; and over all brooded the dread cloud of a speedy evacuation of the city.
Every day saw brigades double-quicking back and forth through the suburbs; the continuous scream of steam-whistles told of movement, here and there; and every indication showed that the numbers of men were inadequate to man the vast extent of the lines. As the spring opened, this became more and more apparent. There was no general attack, but a few brigades would be thrown against some ill-defended work here; and almost simultaneously the undefended lines there would have a force hurled against them. It almost seemed that the enemy, aware of our weakness, was determined to wear out our men by constant action, before he struck his heavy blow. How dear the wearied, starving men made these partial attacks cost him, already his own reports have told.
March came, and with it, orders to remove all government property that could possibly be spared from daily need. First the archives and papers went; then the heavier stores, machinery and guns, and supplies not in use; then the small reserve of medical stores was sent to Danville, or Greensboro. And, at last, the already short supplies of commissary stores were lessened by removal—and the people knew their Capital was at last to be given up!
The time was not known—some said April, some the first of May; but the families of the President and Cabinet had followed the stores; the female Department clerks had been removed to Columbia—and there was no doubt of the fact. After four years of dire endeavor and unparalleled endurance, the Capital of the South was lost!
In their extremity the people said little, but hope left them utterly. In the army or out, there were few, indeed—and no Virginians—but believed the cause was lost when the army marched away.
Richmond was Virginia—was the cause!
With Sherman already in possession of Charleston and Savannah, and the army unable to do aught but retreat sullenly before him—with Virginia gone, and the Confederacy narrowed down to North Carolina, a strip of Alabama and the trans-Mississippi—what hope was left?
After General Johnston had been relieved at Atlanta, the Department had managed, on one reason or another, to shelve him until now. The public voice was loudly raised against the injustice done the man they admired most of all the bright galaxy of the South; and even Congress woke from its stupor long enough to demand for the great soldier a place to use his sword. This was in January; but still the government did not respond, and it was not until the 23d February that he was restored to command. Then—with the shattered remnant of his army, augmented, but not strengthened by the fragments of flying garrisons—he could only fall back before the victorious progress of that "Great March" he might effectually have checked, on its threshold at Atlanta.
Deep gloom—thick darkness that might be felt—settled upon the whole people. Hope went out utterly, and despair—mingled with rage and anguish as the news from the "Great March" came in—took its place in every heart. But in every heart there was bitter sorrow, humiliation—but no fear. As Richmond became more and more empty, and the time to abandon her drew nearer and nearer, her people made what provision they might to meet the enemy they had scorned so long. One class and one alone, showed any sign of fear—the human vultures so long fattened on the dead and dying—the speculators.
With every preparation long since made for the event—with cellars and attics stored with tobacco and other merchandise—with Confederate blood-money converted into gold—these Shylocks now shivered in anticipation of the coming greenbacks, for abject dread of the bluebacks that were to bring them. There is one gleam of satisfaction through the gloom of the great fire—it partly purified the city of these vermin and the foul nests they had made themselves.
All seemed ready during March, and the people watched every movement, listened for every sound, that might indicate actual evacuation. Each morning the city rose from its feverish sleep, uncertain whether, or not, the army had withdrawn in the stillness of the night.
During all this fitful suspense there was no general fight along the lines, and from time to time hope would flicker up, and for the moment throw the shadows into shape of a possible victory—a saving blow for the storm-racked ship of state, now her decks had been cleared for desperate action. Then it would down, down again, lower than before.
With the end of March the enemy made new combinations. His whole disjointed attacks had been against the South Side road, the main artery of supply and retreat. He had ceased organized attacks on the works, and sought only to strike the communications. Now, Sheridan, with a formidable force, was sent to Five Forks; and Richmond heard, on the first day of April, of desperate fighting between him and Pickett.
Next morning, the 2d April, rose as bright a Sunday as had shone in all Richmond that spring. The churches were crowded, and plainly-dressed women—most of them in mourning—passed into their pews with pale, sad faces, on which grief and anxiety had both set their handwriting. There were few men, and most of these came in noisily upon crutches, or pale and worn with fever.
It was no holiday gathering of perfumed and bedizened godliness, that Sunday in Richmond. Earnest men and women had come to the house of God, to ask His protection and His blessing, yet a little longer, for the dear ones that very moment battling so hotly for the worshipers.
In the midst of a prayer at Dr. Hoge's church, a courier entered softly, and advancing to Mr. Davis, handed him a telegram. Noiselessly, and with no show of emotion, Mr. Davis left the church, followed by a member of his staff. A moment after another quietly said a few words to the minister; and then the quick apprehensions of the congregation were aroused. Like an electric shock they felt the truth, even before Dr. Hoge stopped the services and informed them that Richmond would be evacuated that night; and counseled they had best go home and prepare to meet the dreadful to-morrow. The news spread like wildfire. Grant had struck that Sunday morning—had forced the lines, and General Lee was evacuating Petersburg!
The day of wrath had come.
Hastily the few remaining necessaries of the several departments were packed, and sent toward Danville, either by railroad or wagon. Ordnance supplies, that could not be moved, were rolled into the canal; commissary stores were thrown open, and their hoarded contents distributed to the eager crowds. And strange crowds they were. Fragile, delicate women staggered under the heavy loads they bore to suffering children at home; the pale wife clutched hungrily at the huge ham, or the bag of coffee, for the wounded hero, pining at home for such a delicacy. Children were there with outstretched hands, crying for what they could carry; and hoary-headed men tugged wearily at the barrels of pork, flour, or sugar they strove to roll before their weak arms.
Later in the evening, as the excitement increased, fierce crowds of skulking men, and coarse, half-drunken women, gathered before the stores. Half-starved and desperate, they swore and fought among themselves over the spoils they seized. Orders had been given to destroy the whisky at once; but, either from lingering tenderness, or from the hurry of the movement, they were only partially obeyed.
Now the uncontrolled swarms of men and women—especially the wharf rats at Rockett's where the navy storehouses were—seized the liquor and became more and more maddened by it. In some places where the barrels were stove, the whisky ran in the gutters ankle deep; and here half-drunken women, and children even, fought, to dip up the coveted fluid in tin pans, buckets, or any vessel available.
Meanwhile, preparation went on rapidly; the President and Cabinet left for the South—General Breckinridge, Secretary of War, alone remaining to direct the details of evacuation. Everything was ready for the few remaining troops to withdraw, leaving the works on the northern side of the James unoccupied, before daylight. Then the officer with the burning party went his rounds, putting the torch to every armory, machine-shop and storehouse belonging to the Government. By midnight these had begun to burn briskly; one lurid glare shot upward to the sky, from the river; then another and another. The gunboats had been fired, and their crews, passing to the shore equipped for camp, followed the line of the retreating army up the river bank.
Who, that was in it, will ever forget that bitter night? Husbands hastily arranged what plans they might, for the safety of families they were forced to leave behind; women crept out into the midnight, to conceal the little jewelry, money or silver left them, fearing general sack of the city and treachery of even the most trusted negroes. For none knew but that a brutal and drunken mob might be let loose upon the hated, long-coveted Capital, in their power at last! None knew but that the black rule of Butler might be re-enacted—excelled; and women—who had sat calm and restful, while the battle of Seven Pines and the roar of Seven Days, and the later Cold Harbor, shook their windows—now broke down under that dreadful parting with the last defenders of their hearths! Death and flame they had never blanched before; but the nameless terrors of passing under the Yankee yoke vanquished them now.
Pitiful were leave-takings of fathers with their children, husbands with new-made brides, lovers with those who clung to them in even greater helplessness. Ties welded in moments of danger and doubt—in moments of pleasure, precious from their rarity—all must be severed now, for none knew how long—perhaps forever! For man, nor woman, might pierce the black veil before the future. Only the vague oppression was there, that all was over at last; that days to come might mean protracted, bloody mountain warfare—captivity, death, separation eternal!
So men went forth into the black midnight, to what fate they dreamed not, leaving those loved beyond self to what fate they dared not dream!
But even in that supreme hour—true to her nature and true to her past—the woman of Richmond thought of her hero-soldier; not of herself. The last crust in the home was thrust into his reluctant hand; the last bottle of rare old wine slyly slipped into his haversack. Every man in gray was a brother-in-heart to every woman that night!
Long after midnight, I rode by a well-remembered porch, where all that was brightest and gayest of Richmond's youth had passed many happy hours. There was Styles Staple; his joyous face clouded now, his glib tongue mute—with two weeping girls clinging to his hands. Solemnly he bent down; pressed his lips to each pure forehead, in a kiss that was a sacrament—threw himself into their mother's arms, as she had been his own as well; then, with a wrench, broke away and hurled himself into saddle. There was a black frown on Staple's face, as he rode up by me; and I heard a sound—part sob; more heart-deep oath—tear out of his throat. If the Recording Angel caught it, too, I dare swear there was no record against him for it, when—thirty hours later—he answered to his name before the Great Roll-Call! For no more knightly lips will ever press those pure brows; no more loyal soul went to its rest, out of that dire retreat.
Two hours after midnight, all was ready; and all was still, save the muffled roll of distant wagons and, here and there, the sharp call of a bugle. Now and again, the bright glare, above the smoke round the whole horizon, would pale before a vivid, dazzling flash; followed by swaying tremble of the earth and a roar, hoarsely dull; and one more ship of the little navy was a thing of the past.
Later still came to the steady tramp of soldiers—to be heard for the last time in those streets, though its echo may sound down all time! The last scene of the somber drama had begun; and the skeleton battery-supports filed by like specters, now in the gloom, now in the glare of one of the hundred fires. No sound but the muffled word of command came from their ranks; every head was bowed and over many a cheek—tanned by the blaze of the fight and furrowed by winter night-watches—the first tear it had ever known rolled noiselessly, to drop in the beloved dust they were shaking from their feet.
Next came gaunt men, guiding half-starved horses that toiled along with rumbling field-pieces; voiceless now and impotent, as once, to welcome the advancing foe. And finally the cavalry pickets came in, with little show of order; passed across the last bridge and fired it behind them. Over its burning timbers rode General Breckinridge and his staff;—the last group of Confederates was gone;—Richmond was evacuated!
Dies iræ—dies illa!
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
AFTER THE DEATH BLOW WAS DEALT.
Just as dawn broke through the smoke-eddies over the deserted Capital, the morning after its evacuation, two carriages crept through the empty streets, toward the fortifications. In them—grave-faced and sad—sat the Mayor of Richmond and a committee of her council, carrying the formal surrender to the Federal commander on the northern bank of the James.
Many a sad, a few terrified, faces peered at them through closed shutters; but the eager groups about the fires, striving still to secure scraps from the flames, never paused for a glance at the men who bore the form of the already accomplished fact.
Before long, eager watchers from Chimborazo Heights saw bluecoats rise dim over the distant crest. Then came the clatter of cavalry, sabers drawn and at a trot; still cautiously feeling their way into the long-coveted stronghold. Behind followed artillery and infantry in compact column, up the River Road, through Rockett's to Capitol Square. There they halted; raised the Stars-and-stripes on the staff from which the Stars-and-bars had floated—often in their very sight—for four weary, bitter years!
It was a solemn and gloomy march; little resembling the people's idea of triumphal entry into a captured city. The troops were quiet, showing little elation; their officers anxious and watchful ever; and dead silence reigned around them, broken only by the roar and hiss of flames, or the sharp explosion as they reached some magazine. Not a cheer broke the stillness; and even the wrangling, half-drunken bummers round the fires slunk sullenly away; while but few negroes showed their faces, and those ashen-black from indefinite fear; their great mouths gaping and white eyes rolling in curious dread that took away their faculty for noise.
By the time Weitzel's brigade of occupation had been posted—and several regiments massed on the Capitol—the fire had become general. Intending only to destroy munitions and supplies of war—the firing party had been more hasty than discreet. A strong breeze sprang up, off the river, and warehouse followed warehouse into the line of the flames. Old, dry and crammed with cotton, or other inflammable material, these burned like tinder; and at many points, whole blocks were on fire.
A dense pall of smoke hovered low over the entire city; and through it shone huge eddies of flames and sparks, carrying great blazing planks and rafters whirling over the shriveling buildings. Little by little these drew closer together; and by noon, one vast, livid flame roared and screamed before the wind, from Tenth street to Rockett's; licking its red tongue around all in its reach and drawing the hope—the very life of thousands into its relentless maw!
Should the wind shift, that rapidly-gaining fire would sweep uptown and devour the whole city; but, while the few men left looked on in dismayed apathy, deliverance came from the enemy. The regiments in Capitol Square stacked arms; were formed into fire-squads; and sped at once to points of danger. Down the deserted streets these marched; now hidden by eddying smoke—again showing like silhouettes, against the vivid glare behind them. Once at their points for work, the men went at it with a will; and—so strong was force of discipline—with no single attempt at plunder reported!
Military training never had better vindication than on that fearful day; for its bonds must have been strong indeed, to hold that army, suddenly in possession of city so coveted—so defiant—so deadly, for four long years.
Whatever the citizens may vaguely have expected from Grant's army, what they received from it that day was aid—protection—safety! Demoralized and distracted by sorrow and imminent danger; with almost every male absent—with no organization and no means to fight the new and terrible enemy—the great bulk of Richmond's population might have been houseless that night, but for the disciplined promptitude of the Union troops. The men worked with good will; their officers, with ubiquitous energy. If the fire could not be stayed, at any particular point, a squad entered each house, bore its contents to a safe distance; and there a guard was placed over them.
Sad and singular groups were there, too. Richmond's best and tenderest nurtured women moved among their household gods, hastily piled in the streets, selecting this or that sacred object, to carry it in their own hands—where? Poor families, utterly beggared, sat wringing their hands amid the wreck of what was left, homeless and hopeless; while, here and there, the shattered remnant of a soldier was borne, on a stretcher in kindly, if hostile, hands, through clouds of smoke and mourning relatives to some safer point.
Ever blacker and more dense floated the smoke-pall over the deserted city; ever louder and more near roared the hungry flames. And constantly, through all that dreadful day, thewhoo!of shells from magazines, followed by the thud of explosion, cut the dull roar of the fire. For—whether through negligence or want of time—charged shells of all sizes had been left in the many ordnance stores when the torch was applied. These narrow brick chambers—now white hot and with a furnace-blast through them—swept the heaviest shells like cinders over the burning district. Rising high in air, with hissing fuses, they burst at many points, adding new terrors to the infernal scene; and some of them, borne far beyond the fire's limit, burst over the houses, tearing and igniting their dry roofs.
Slowly the day, filled with its hideous sights and sounds, wore on; and slowly the perseverance of man told against the devouring element. The fire was, at last, kept within its own bounds; then gradually forced backward, to leave a charred, steaming belt between it and the unharmed town. Within this, the flames still leaped and writhed and wrangled in their devilish glee; but Richmond was now comparatively safe, and her wretched inhabitants might think of food and rest. Little had they recked of either for many a dread hour past!
The provost-marshal, that unfailing adjunct to every occupation, had fixed his office at the court-house. There a mixed and singular crowd waited gloomily, or jostled eagerly, for speech of the autocrat of the hour. Captured officers stood quietly apart, or peered out earnestly through the smoke drifts, while their commitments to Libby Prison were made out; anxious and wan women, of every sphere in life, besieged the clerk preparing "protection papers;" while a fussy official, of higher grade, gave assurance to every one that guards should be placed about their homes. For the deserted women of Richmond dreaded not only the presence of the victorious enemy, but also that of the drunken and brutalized "bummers" and deserters who stayed behind their own army.
The guards were really stationed as promptly as was practicable; the fire-brigade men were sent to quarters; pickets in blue patroled the outskirts; and, by nightfall, the proud Capital of the Southern Confederacy was only a Federal barrack!
For two days after their entrance the Union army might have supposed they had captured a city of the dead. The houses were all tightly closed, shutters fastened and curtains drawn down; and an occasional blue-coated sentry in porch, or front yard, was the sole sign of life. In the streets it was little different. Crowds of soldiers moved curiously from point to point, large numbers of negroes mixing with them—anxious to assist their new found brotherhood, but wearing most awkwardly their vested rights. Here and there a gray jacket would appear for a moment—the pale and worn face above it watching with anxious eyes the unused scene; then it would disappear again. This was all. The Federals had full sweep of the city—with its silent streets and its still smoking district, charred and blackened; where, for acre after acre, only fragments of walls remained, and where tall chimney stacks, gaunt and tottering, pointed to heaven in witness against the useless sacrifice.
For two days this lasted. The curious soldiers lounged about the silent town, the burned desert still sent up its clouds of close, fetid smoke; the ladies of Richmond remained close prisoners. Then necessity drove them out, to seek food, or some means to obtain it; to visit the sick left behind; or to make charitable visits to those who might be even less provided than themselves.
Clad almost invariably in deep mourning—with heavy veils invariably hiding their faces—the broken-hearted daughters of the Capital moved like shadows of the past, through the places that were theirs no longer. There was no ostentation of disdain for their conquerors—no assumption of horror if they passed a group of Federals—no affected brushing of the skirt from the contact with the blue. There was only deep and real dejection—sorrow bearing too heavily on brain and heart to make an outward show—to even note smaller annoyances that might else have proved so keen. If forced into collision, or communication, with the northern officers, ladies were courteous as cold; they made no parade of hatred, but there was that in their cold dignity which spoke plainly of impassable barriers.
And, to their credit be it spoken, the soldiers of the North respected the distress they could but see; the bitterness they could not misunderstand. They made few approaches toward forcing their society—even where billeted in the houses of the citizens, keeping aloof and never intruding on the family circle.
For several days the water-approaches to the city could not be cleared from the obstructions sunk in them; all railroad communication was destroyed, and the whole population was dependent upon the slender support of the wagon trains. Few even of the wealthiest families had been able to make provision ahead; scarcely any one had either gold, or greenbacks; and suffering became actual and pinching. Then came the order that the Federal commissary was to issue rations to those needing them. Pinching themselves, as they did; preferring to subsist on the slenderest food that would sustain life, to accepting the charity of the enemy—many of those suffering women were driven by sheer hunger—by the threatened starvation of their children, or of the loved wounded ones near them—to seek the proffered bounty. They forced their way into the surging, fighting crowd of greasy and tattered negroes, of dark-faced "bummers" and "loyal" residents—and they received small rations of cornmeal and codfish; bearing them home to be eaten with what bitter seasoning they might of tears from pain and humiliation.
The direst destitution of the war had been nothing to this. With their own people around them, with hope and love to sustain them, the women of Richmond did not wince under the pinch of want. But now, surrounded by enemies, with not a pound of flour, or a cent of currency, actual starvation—as well as humiliation—stared them in the face. The few who went to draw rations, sat down in blank despair. Theycould notmake up their minds to go again. The fewer still, who had the least surplus from immediate wants, distributed it freely; and a cup of sugar from a slender stock was bartered here for a few slices of the hoarded ham, or a pound or two of necessary meal.
Meantime, sutlers, peddlers and hucksters swarmed in like locusts, on the very first steamers up the river. They crowded Broad street, the unburned stores on Main, and even the alleyways, with great piles of every known thing that could be put up in tin. They had calculated on a rich harvest; but they had reckoned without their host. There was no money in Richmond to spend with them; and after a profitless sojourn, they took up their tin cans, and one by one returned North—certainly wiser and, possibly, better men. It was peculiar to note the universality of southern sympathy among these traders. There was scarcely one among them who didn't think the war "a darned shame;" they were intensely sympathetic and all came from South of the Pennsylvania line. But the supporters, either of their principles, or their trade, were the few lucky negroes who could collect "stamps," in never so small qualities; and to such the sutlers were a joy forever.
Shut off entirely from any communication with their retreating troops and mingling so little with their captors, Richmond people got only most startling and unreliable rumors from the army. Clinging, with the tenacity of the drowning, to the least straw of hope, they would not yet give up utterly that army they had looked on so long as invincible—that cause, which was more than life to them! Though they knew the country around was filled with deserters and stragglers; though the Federals had brigades lying round Richmond in perfect idleness—still for a time the rumor gained credit that General Lee had turned on his pursuer, at Amelia Court House, and gained a decisive victory over him. Then came the more positive news that Ewell was cut off with 13,000 men; and, finally, on the 9th of April, Richmond heard that Lee had surrendered. Surely as this result should have been looked forward to—gradually as the popular mind had been led to it—still it came as a blow of terrific suddenness. The people refused to believe it—they said it was a Yankee trick; and when the salute of one hundred guns rang out from forts and shipping, they still said, bitterly, it was a ruse to make them commit themselves.
Gradually they came to accept the inevitable; and, as the last ray of hope died out, its place was filled with the intense yearning to know the fate of those lost and loved ones—to know if they had died at the bitter ending, or lived to be borne away into captivity. Forgetting pride, hostility—all but their anxiety for those so precious to them now—the women caught at every shred of information; questioned ignorant soldiers eagerly; and listened patiently to the intelligible news the officers were only too willing to give. And at last these rumors assumed tangible form—there was no longer any room to doubt. General Lee, weakened by desertion and breaking down of his men—by General Ewell's capture and by the sense of hopelessness of further resistance, had on the morning of the 9th of April, surrendered 24,000 men—including the volunteer citizens, and the naval brigade of all the Richmond ship's-crews—and with them 8,000 muskets! Such, too, was the condition of the horses that the Federals refused even to drive them away from their stands. Little need, indeed, had there been for those extra brigades around the city.
Then Richmond, sitting like Rachel in her desolation, waited for the return of her vanquished—heroes still to her. News came of the general parole; and every sound across the river—every cloud of dust at the pontoon bridge—was the signal for a rush to doorstep and porch. Days passed and the women—not realizing the great difficulties of transportation—grew impatient to clasp their loved ones once more to their hearts. False outcries were made every hour, only to result in sickening disappointment and suspense. At last the evening of the third day came and, just at dusk, a single horseman turned slowly into deserted Franklin street.
Making no effort to urge his jaded beast, travel-stained and weary himself, he let the reins fall from his hands and his head droop upon his chest. It was some time before any one noticed that he wore the beloved gray—that he was Major B., one of the bravest and most staunch of the noble youth Richmond had sent out at the first. Like electricity the knowledge ran from house to house—"Tom B. has come! The army is coming!"
Windows, doorsteps and curbstones became alive at the words—each woman had known him from childhood—had known him joyous, and frank, and ever gay. Each longed to ask for husband, son, or brother; but all held back as they saw the dropped head, and felt his sorrow too deep to be disturbed.
At last one fair wife, surrounded by her young children, stepped into the road and spoke. The ice was broken. The soldier was surrounded; fair faces quivering with suspense, looked up to his, as soft voices begged for news of—"somebody's darling;" and tender hands even patted the starved beast that had borne the hero home! The broad chest heaved as it would burst, a great sob shook the stalwart frame, and a huge teardrop rolled down the cheek that had never changed color in the hottest flashes of the fight. And then the sturdy soldier—conquering his emotion but with no shame for it—told all he could and lightened many a heavy heart. And up to his own door they walked by his side, bareheaded and in the roadway, and there they left him alone to be folded in the embrace of the mother to whom he still was "glorious in the dust."
Next morning a small group of horsemen appeared on the further side of the pontoons. By some strange intuition, it was known that General Lee was among them, and a crowd collected all along the route he would take, silent and bareheaded. There was no excitement, no hurrahing; but, as the great chief passed, a deep, loving murmur, greater than these, rose from the very hearts of the crowd. Taking off his hat and simply bowing his head, the man great in adversity passed silently to his own door; it closed upon him, and his people had seen him for the last time in his battle harness.
Later others came, by scores and hundreds; many a household was made glad that could not show a crust for dinner; and then for days Franklin street lived again. Once more the beloved gray was everywhere, and once more bright eyes regained a little of their brightness, as they looked upon it.
Then suddenly the reins were tightened. On the morning of the 14th, the news of Lincoln's murder fell like a thunderclap upon victor and vanquished in Richmond. At first the news was not credited; then an indignant denial swelled up from the universal heart, that it was for southern vengeance, or that southern men could have sympathy in so vile an act. The sword and not the dagger was the weapon the South had proved she could use; and through the length and breadth of the conquered land was a universal condemnation of the deed.
But the Federal authorities—whether sincere in their belief, or not—made this the pretext for a thorough change of policy in Richmond.
First came uniform orders, that none of the insignia, or rank marks, of the South should be worn—a measure peculiarly oppressive to men who had but one coat. Then came rules about "congregations of rebels," and three Confederates could not stand a moment on a corner, without dispersion by a provost-guard.
Finally came the news of Johnston's surrender—of the last blow to the cause, now lost indeed. Still this fact had been considered a certain one from the date of Lee's surrender; and it bore none of the crushing weight that had made them refuse to believe in the latter. Confident as all were in General Johnston's ability to do all that man might, they still knew his numerical weakness; that he must ere long be crushed between the upper and nether millstones. So this news was received with a sigh, rather than a groan.
There was a momentary hope that the wise covenant between Generals Johnston and Sherman, as to the basis of the surrender, would be indorsed by the Government; but the result of its refusal and of the final surrender on the 13th—was after all little different from what all had expected. Even the wild and maddened spirits, who refused to accept Lee's cartel, and started to work their way to Johnston, could have had no hope of his final success in their calmer moments.
But Johnston's surrender did not lift the yoke from Richmond, in any degree. Police regulations of the most annoying character were imposed; the fact of a parole bearing any significance was entirely ignored; no sort of grace was shown to its possessor, unless he took the oath; and many men, caught in Richmond at this time and far from home, were reduced to distress and almost starvation by the refusal of transportation.
All this the southern people bore with patience. They submitted to all things but two: they would not take the oath and they would not mix socially with their conquerors. In that respect the line was as rigorously drawn in Richmond, at that time, as ever Venice drew it against the Austrian. Not that any attempt was omitted by the Federals to overcome what they called this "prejudice." There was music in Capitol Square, by the best bands of the army, and the ladies were specially invited by the public prints. Not one went; and the officers listened to their own music in company with numbers of lusty black emancipated, who fully felt themselves women and sisters. Next it was given out that the negroes would not be admitted; but then the officers listened alone, and finally gave it up. Failing in public, every effort—short of rudeness and intrusion, which were never resorted to—was made to effect a social lodgment in private. But no Federal uniform ever crossed a rebel threshold, in those days, save on business. The officers occupied parts of many houses; but they were made to feel that the other part, occupied by the household, was private still.
Another infliction, harder to bear, was the well-meant intrusion of old friends from the North. Pleasure parties to Richmond were of constant occurrence; and for the time quite eclipsed in popularity, with the Washington idlers, the inevitable pilgrimage to Mt. Vernon. Gaily dressed and gushing over in the merriment of a party of pleasure, these visitors often sought out theirante-bellumfriends; and then and there would condone the crime of rebellion to them—sitting in desolation by the ashes of their household gods. It is not hard to understand how bitter was proffered forgiveness, to those who never admitted they could have been wrong; and perhaps the soft answer that turneth away wrath, was not always given to such zealously officious friends.
There was little bitterness expressed, however much may have fermented in the hearts of the captured; and, as a general thing, the people were grateful for the moderation of the Yankees, and appreciated the good they had done at the fire. But, deeper than any bitterness could have sunk, was that ingrained feeling that there were two peoples that these could never again mingle in former amity, till oil and water might mix. The men especially—and with much apparent reason—were utterly hopeless of the future; and, collecting in knots, they would gloomily discuss the prospect of emigration, as if that were the sole good the future held. There can be little doubt that had the ability been theirs, a large majority of the young men of the South would have gone abroad, to seek their fortunes in new paths and under new skies. Luckily, for their country, the commander at Richmond failed to keep his agreement with the paroled officers; and—after making out rolls of those who would be granted free permission and passage to Canada, England or South America—those rolls were suddenly annulled and the whole matter given up. Thus a number of useful, invaluable men who have ever since fought the good fight against that outrage—the imposition of negro dominance over her—were saved to the South.
And that good fight, begun in the natural law of self-preservation, has eventuated to the interests of a common country. For no one who does not intimately understand the character of the negro—his mental and moral, as well as his physical, constitution—can begin to comprehend the sin committed against him, even more than against the white man, by putting him in the false attitude of equality with, or antagonism to, the latter.
No one, who did not move among the negroes, immediately after conquest of the South—and who did not see them with experience-opened eyes—can approach realization of the pernicious workings of that futile attempt.
Writing upon the inner details of the war and its resulting action upon the morale of the southern people, omission can not be made of that large and unfortunate class; driven—first by blind fanaticism, later by fear of their own party existence—into abnormal condition by the ultra radicals. The negro rapidly changed; "equality" frittered away what good instincts he had and developed all the worst, innate with him. It changed him from a careless and thriftless, but happy and innocent producer, into a mere consumer, at best; often indeed, into a besotted and criminal idler, subsisting in part upon Nature's generosity in supplying cabbage and fish, in part upon the thoughtlessness of his neighbor in supplying chickens and eggs.
Yet—so powerful is result of habit; on so much foundation of nature is based the Scythian fable—the negroes of the South, immediately succeeding the surrender, used the new greatness thrust upon them with surprising innocence. Laziness, liquor and loud asseverations of freedom and equality were its only blessings claimed; and the commission of overt acts, beyond those named, were rare enough to prove the rule of force of habit. Lured from old service for a time, most of them followed not far the gaudy and shining Will-o'-the-Wisp; and almost all—especially the household and personal servants—soon returned to "Ole Mas'r" once more, sadder and wiser for the futile chase after freedom's joys. But, even these were partly spoiled and rendered of far less practical use to themselves, or to their employers.
The "negro question" to-day is made merely a matter of politics, rather than one of political economy. At the date of the Confederacy's death, it is a matter of history.
Gradually—by very slow degrees—people in Richmond—as elsewhere in the South, further removed from victor's contact—began to grow so far accustomed to the chains imposed upon them, that they seemed less unbearably galling. Little by little—forced by the necessities of themselves and of those still dearer—men went to work at new and strange occupations; doing not what they would, but what they could, in the bitter struggle with want for their daily bread. But, spite of earnest resolve and steady exertion,