The Boys of '61 / or, Four Years of Fighting, Personal Observations with the Army and Navy

by Charles Carleton Coffin

General Ewell crosses the bridge, riding an iron-gray horse. He wears an old faded cloak and slouch hat. He is brutal and profane, mingling oaths with his orders. Following him is John Cabel Breckenridge, the long, black, glossy hair of other days changed to gray, his high, broad forehead wrinkled and furrowed. He is in plain black, with a talma thrown over his shoulders. He talks with Ewell, and gazes upon the scene. Suddenly a broad flash of light leaps up beyond the city, accompanied with a dull, heavy roar, and he sees the air filled with flying timbers of the hospital, whose inmates, almost without warning, and without cause or crime, are blown into eternity.

The last division has crossed the river. The sun is up. A match is touched to the turpentine spread along the timbers, and the bridges are in flames; also the tobacco warehouses, the flouring-mills, the arsenals, and laboratory. The Rebel troops behold the conflagration as they wind along the roads and through the green fields towards the southwest, and memory brings back the scenes of their earlier rejoicing. It is the 2d of April, four years lacking two weeks since the drunken carousal over the passage of the ordinance of Secession.

Ruins of Richmond.

It was a little past four o'clock when Major A. H. Stevens of the Fourth Massachusetts cavalry, and Provost Marshal of the Twenty-Fifth Army Corps, with detachments from companies E and H, started upon a reconnoissance of the enemy's intrenchments. He found them evacuated and the guns spiked. A deserter piloted the detachment safely over the torpedoes which had been planted in front of them. A mile and a half out from the city, Major Stevens met a barouche and five men mounted bearing a white flag. The party consisted of the Mayor, Judge Meredith of the Confederate States Court, and other gentlemen, who tendered the surrender of the city. He went into the city and was received with joy by the colored people, who shouted their thanks to the Lord that the Yankees had come. He proceeded to the Capitol, ascended the roof, pulled down the State flag which was flying, and raised the guidons of the two companies upon the building.

The flames were spreading, and the people, horror-struck and stupefied by the events of the night, were powerless to arrest them. On, on, from dwelling to warehouse, from store to hotel, from hotel to banks, to the newspaper offices, to churches, all along Main Street from near the Spottswood Hotel to the eastern end of the town; then back to the river, to the bridges across the James, up to the large stone fire-proof building, erected by the United States for a post-office, full of Confederate shinplasters, around this, on both sides of it, up to Capitol Square, the flames roared and leaped and crackled, consuming all the business part of the city. In the arsenal were several thousand shells, which exploded at intervals, throwing fragments of iron, burning timbers, and blazing brands and cinders over the surrounding buildings, and driving the people from their homes.

Major Stevens ordered the fire-engines into position, posted his soldiers to preserve order, and called upon the citizens to work the engines, and did what he could to stop the progress of the devouring element.

General Weitzel triumphantly entered the city at eight o'clock, the colored soldiers singing the John Brown song. With even ranks and steady step, colors waving, drums beating, bands playing, the columns passed up the streets, flanked with fire, to the Capitol. Then stacking their guns, and laying aside their knapsacks, they sprang to the engines, or mounted the roofs and poured in buckets of water, or tore down buildings, to stop the ravages of the fire kindled by the departing Rebels,—emulating the noble example of their comrades in arms at Charleston; like them manifesting no vindictiveness of spirit, but forgetting self in their devotion to duty, forgetting wrong and insult and outrage in their desire to serve their oppressors in their hour of extremity.

The business portion was a sea of flame when I entered the city in the afternoon. I tried to pass through Main Street, but on both sides the fire was roaring and walls were tumbling. I turned into a side street, rode up to the Capitol, and then to the Spottswood Hotel. Dr. Reed's church in front was in flames. On the three sides of the hotel the fire had been raging, but was now subdued, and there was a fair prospect that it would be saved.