As I passed along the streets in the afternoon there was nothing to indicate a panicky feeling; in fact, there was rather less commotion than usual, but much, no doubt, within doors.
On arriving at camp I was the first to bring tidings of what had occurred to the company, and observed the varying effect produced on the different members, officers and men. To some it came as relief after long suspense, while others seemed hopelessly cast down and dejected. Orders to prepare to move soon followed, and our march to and through Richmond began with only two of our four guns, the other two being left behind for want of horses.
We reached the city shortly before midnight, and, with Estill Waddell, of our battalion, I passed by the home of some friends, who, we found, had retired for the night. In response to my call, the head of the house appeared at an upper window. I had with me the few valuables I possessed, among them the brass button worn on my jacket and indented by the shell at second Cold Harbor. These I tossed into the yard, with the request that he would keep them for me. And, some months after the war, the package was sent to me in Lexington.
We could now see and realize what the evacuation of Richmond involved. Waddell had learned that his brother James, adjutant of the Twenty-fourth Virginia Infantry, had been wounded the day before at Petersburg, and was in the Chimborazo Hospital. At this we soon arrived, and entered a large apartment with low ceiling and brilliantly lighted. On row after row of cots lay wounded men, utterly oblivious and indifferent to the serious conditions that disturbed those of us who realized what they were. Nurses and attendants were extremely scarce, and as deep silence prevailed as if each cot contained a corpse.
After a search of a few moments Waddell recognized his brother in sound sleep. His appearance for manly beauty, as we stood over him, surpassed that of any figure I have ever seen. His slight, graceful form stretched at full length, a snow-white forehead fringed with dark hair, and chin resting on his chest, he lay like an artist's model rather than a wounded warrior, and the smile with which his brown eyes opened at the sound of his brother's voice betokened the awakening from a dream of peace and home. On another cot, a few steps farther on, I recognized John McClintic, of the Rockbridge Cavalry, and brother of my messmate. He was a boy of seventeen, with his arm shattered at the shoulder. On the cot next to him lay a man who was dying. McClintic and the others near him who could make their wants known were almost famished for water, a bucket of which, after much difficulty, we secured for them. On the following day this young fellow, rather than be left in the hands of the Federals, rode in an ox-cart and walked twenty miles, and finally reached his home in Rockbridge.
After leaving the hospital we passed on to Main street and the business part of the city, where the scene would remind one of Bulwer's description of "The Last Days of Pompeii." The storehouses had been broken into and stood wide open, and fires had been kindled out of the goods boxes, on the floors, to afford light to plunder. Articles of liquid nature, especially intoxicants, had been emptied into the gutters, from which such portions as could be rescued were being greedily sought.
From dark garrets and cellars the old hags and half-starved younger women and children had gathered, and were reaping a harvest such as they had never dreamed of. I saw a small boy, with an old, wrinkled, grinning woman at his heels, steer a barrel of flour around a corner and into a narrow alley with the speed and skill of a roustabout. The fire on the floors had not extended to the structures as we passed, but as no one seemed in the least concerned or interfered with their progress the flames soon put in their work and spread in all directions.
We crossed the James on Mayo's Bridge, following the road in a southwesterly direction. With the first appearance of dawn the blowing up of the naval vessels in the river began, culminating in a gigantic explosion that made the earth tremble. This last was the magazine at Drewry's Bluff.
Witnessing such scenes, with a realization of their significance, in the early part of our war experience would, no doubt, have been hopelessly demoralizing, but now the calmness and fortitude with which we took it demonstrated the fact that four years of such schooling had seasoned us to meet unflinchingly the most desperate situations. When broad daylight came we had the opportunity of seeing some of the heterogeneous elements of which Richmond was composed. Disaster had come too suddenly to afford time beforehand for the non-combatants to migrate, even if there had been safe places to which to flee.
That such looking objects should have undertaken to accompany an army in the field, or rather into the fields, indicated what desperate chances they were willing to take rather than abandon themselves to a doubtful fate by remaining behind. In addition to the city contingent and those who garrisoned the forts where heavy ordnance only was used, the line of march was joined by the marine department, which had been doing duty on the river craft about Dutch Gap, Drewry's and Chaffin's bluffs, etc. Altogether, it was a motley combination, which afforded much amusement and the usual sallies of wit at each other's expense. The marine element was the most striking in appearance, and encumbered with enough baggage for a voyage to the North Pole. In three days' time this had all been discarded.