“Are you related to our famous General ——?”
“Very likely, very likely,” was the complacent answer; “the ——’s are all connected.”
Next to the uncompromising Union men, the most sincerely loyal Virginians I saw in Richmond, or elsewhere, were those who had been lately fighting against us. Only now and then a Confederate soldier had much of the spirit of the Rebellion left in him.
“The truth is,” said Colonel D——, “we have had the devil whipped out of us. It is only those who kept out of the fight that are in favor of continuing it. I fought you with all my might until we got whipped; then I gave it up as a bad job; and now there’s not a more loyal man in the United States than I am.” He had become thoroughly converted from the heresy of secession. “No nation can live that tolerates such a doctrine; and, if we had succeeded, the first thing we should have done would have been to repudiate it.”
I became acquainted with several officers of this class, who inspired me with confidence and sympathy. Yet when one of them told me he had been awarded a government place, with four thousand a year, I could not help saying,—
“What right have you to such a place? How many capable and worthy men, who have been all the while fighting for the government you have been fighting against, would be thankful for a situation with one half or one quarter the salary!”
The animus of the secessionists who kept out of the war, and especially of the women, still manifested itself spitefully on occasions.
“It is amusing,” said Mrs. W——, “to see the pains some of them take to avoid walking under the flag we keep flying over our door.”
Two female teachers of the freed people had, after much trouble, obtained board and lodgings in a private family, where the treatment they received was such as no sensitive person could endure. They were obliged to leave, and accept quarters in a Confederate government building not much better than a barn. Many Richmond families were glad enough to board army officers for their money; but few were prepared to receive and treat decently “nigger teachers,” at any price.
