"As I passed the old market-house," writes a Rebel soldier, "I met a tall fellow with both arms full of sticks of candy, dropping part of his sweet burden at every step."
"Stranger," said he, "have you got a sweet tooth?"
"I told him that I did not object to candy."
"Then go up to Antoni's and get your belly full, and all for nothing."
"A citizen passed me with an armful of hats and caps. 'It is every man for himself and the Devil for us all to-night,' he said, as he rushed past me."[97]
The train which bore Jeff Davis from the city left at eight o'clock in the evening. He took his horses and coach on board for a flight across the country, in case Sheridan stopped the cars. He was greatly depressed in spirits, and his countenance was haggard and care-worn. At the station there was a crowd of men who had fawned upon him,—office-holders, legislators, and public-spirited citizens who had made great sacrifices for the Rebellion,—who, now that they wished to obtain standing room upon the train, found themselves rudely thrust aside by the orders of the President. They were of no more account than the rest of the excited populace that knew Davis but to execrate him.
In the Sabbath evening twilight, the train, with the fugitive government, its stolen bullion, and its Doctors of Divinity on board, moved out from the city.
At the same hour the Governor of Virginia, William Smith, and the Legislature, embarked in a canal-boat, on the James River and Kanawha Canal, for Lynchburg. On all the roads were men, women, and children, in carriages of every description, with multitudes on horseback and on foot, flying from the Rebel capital. Men who could not get away were secretly at work, during those night-hours, burying plate and money in gardens; ladies secreted their jewels, barred and bolted their doors, and passed a sleepless night, fearful of the morrow, which would bring in the despised "Vandal horde of Yankee ruffians"; for such were the epithets they had persistently applied to the soldiers of the Union throughout the war.
But the government was not quite through with its operations in Richmond. General Ewell remained till daylight on Monday morning to clear up things,—not to burn public archives in order to destroy evidence of Confederate villany, but to add to the crime already committed another so atrocious that the stanchest friends of the Confederacy recoiled with horror even from its contemplation.
It was past midnight when the Mayor learned that Ewell had issued orders for firing the government buildings and the tobacco warehouses. He sent a deputation of prominent citizens to remonstrate. They were referred to Major Melton, who was to apply the torch.