Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"Lucia," he whispered, "if I stay here it is partly for love of you. Tell me, if you still hold anything against me, that you forgive me. I have been weak and foolish, but if so it was because I had lost something that I valued most in all the world. Again I say I was weak and foolish, but that was all; I have done nothing wrong. Oh, I was mad, but it was a momentary madness, and I love you and you alone."

She put down her hand from the window and shyly touched his hair. He seized the hand and kissed it. She hastily withdrew it, and the red arose in her cheeks, but her eyes were not unkind.

His world, the world of the old South, was still falling about him. Piece by piece it fell. The hour was far toward morning. The rumble of wagons in the streets died. All the refugees who could go were gone, but the thieves and the drunkards were still abroad. In some places men had begun to make efforts to check the fire and to save the city from total ruin, and Prescott helped them, working amid the smoke and the ashes.

The long night of terror come to an end and the broad sun flushed the heavens. Then rose again the cry: "The Yankees!" and now report and rumour were true. Northern troops were approaching, gazing curiously at this burning city which for four years had defied efforts, costing nearly a million lives, and the Mayor went forth ready to receive them and make the surrender.

Prescott and the three women followed to see. He was stained and blackened now, and he could watch in safety, slipping out afterward to join his own army. The fires still roared, and overhead the clouds of smoke still drifted. Afar sounded the low, steady beat of a drum. The vanguard of the North was entering the Southern capital, and even those fighting the fires deserted their work for awhile to look on.

Slowly the conquerors came down the street, gazing at the burning city and those of its people who remained. They themselves bore all the marks of war, their uniforms torn and muddy, their faces thin and brown, their ranks uneven. They marched mostly in silence, the people looking on and saying little. Presently they entered the Capitol grounds. A boy among the cavalry sprang from his horse and ran into the building, holding a small tightly wrapped package in his hand.

Prescott, looking up, saw the Stars and Bars come down from the dome of the Capitol; then a moment later something shot up in its place, and unfolding, spread its full length in the wind until all the stripes and stars were shining. The flag of the Union once more waved over Richmond. A cheer, not loud, broke from the Northern troops and its echo again came from the crowd.

Prescott felt something stir within him and a single tear ran down his cheek. He was not a sentimental man, but he had fought four years for the flag that was now gone forever. And yet the sight of the new flag that was the old one, too, was not wholly painful. He was aware of the feeling that it was like an old and loved friend come back again.

Then the march went on, solemn and somber. The victors showed no elation; there were no shouts, no cheers. The lean, brown men in the faded blue uniforms rarely spoke, and the watchful, anxious eyes of the officers searched everywhere. The crowd around them sank into silence, but above them and around them the flames of the burning city roared and crackled as they bit deep into the wood. Now and then there was a rumble and then a crash as a house, its supports eaten away, fell in; and at rare intervals a tremendous explosion as some magazine blew up, to be followed by a minute of intense, vivid silence, for which the roaring flames seemed only a background.

The drunken mob of the under-world shrank away at the sight of the troops, and presently relapsed, too, into a sullen silence of fear or awe. The immense cloud of smoke which had been gathering for so many hours over Richmond thickened and darkened and was cut through here and there by the towers of flame which were leaping higher and higher. Then a strong breeze sprang up, blowing off the river, and the fire reached the warehouses filled with cotton, which burned almost like gunpowder, and the conflagration gathered more volume and vigour. The wind whirled it about in vast surges and eddies. Ashes and sparks flew in showers. The light of the sun was obscured by the wide roof of smoke, but beneath there was the lurid light of the fire. The men saw the faces of each other in a crimson glow, and in such a light the mind, too, magnified and distorted the objects that the eye beheld. The victorious soldiers themselves looked with awe upon the burning city. They had felt, in no event, any desire to plunder or destroy; and now it was alike their instinct and wish to save. Regiment after regiment stacked arms on Shockoe Hill, divided into companies under the command of officers, and disappeared down the smoking street—not now fighters of battles, but fighters of fire. The Yankees had, indeed, come in time, for to them the saving of the city from entire ruin was due. All day they worked with the people who were left, among the torrents of flame and smoke, suppressing the fire in places, and in others, where they could not, taking out the household goods and heaping them in the squares. They worked, too, to an uncommon chorus. Cartridges and shells were exploding in the burning magazines, the cartridges with a steady crackle and the shells with a hiss and a scream and then a stream of light. All the time the smoke grew thicker and stung the eyes of those who toiled in its eddies.