BOUND FOR THE LAND OF FREEDOM.
The negro contrabands that flocked to our lines during the closing days of the struggle furnished a great deal of amusement to the soldiers. In their hasty flight for freedom they picked up the very articles that were of little use to them, even to feather beds, boxes, cotton umbrellas, stovepipe hats and of course every musician his banjo. The girls wore huge hoop skirts which were then in vogue, and many had on flounced silk dresses that had evidently been borrowed from “Missus’ wardrobe.” There was nothing these poor black people would not do for “Massa Lincum soldier men,” whom they fairly worshiped. An old “Mammy” made my chum and I an old fashioned “hoecake” at high bridge, baking it in a skillet which she buried in the coals of a campfire, and it was about the most toothsome morsel I ever ate. Goodness gracious! what would I give for the appetite and digestion of those days.
PRAYER FOR THE C. S. A.
We entered a neat looking church one day, and one of the boys opened an Episcopal prayer book at the altar, and at the “Prayer for All in Authority,” found that the words “the president of the United States” had been cut out, and, folded in the book, was a manuscript copy of prayers for the “Confederate States of America.”
RICHMOND AFTER THE EVACUATION.
Those who have visited this beautiful Virginia city in recent years have no idea of the appearance of the place after it was evacuated by the Confederates. Lee’s message of April 2, telling Jefferson Davis that “my lines are broken in three places, Richmond must be evacuated this evening,” found Mr. Davis in church. He quietly withdrew, and the fate of the city was soon noised about the streets, which became filled with men, wagons and negroes carrying trunks and bundles of every description.
After the departure of President Davis and others of the Confederate government, Gen. Ewell issued orders for the burning of the large warehouses of the city, and thus a great conflagration was started that threatened to lay in ashes all of the business structures.
The city council met and decided to destroy every drop of liquor in town, and at midnight committees of citizens visited every ward and rolled hundreds of barrels of whisky into the streets, and, knocking the heads out, the gutters were flooded. The shipping at the wharves was fired and pandemonium reigned complete for 24 hours.