The Richmond press regularly quoted the principal New York papers of only a day or so preceding. Of course, all the unfavorable criticism of the Union military officers, and especially the opposition to the administration of Lincoln on the part of Northern Copperheads.
If some of these old Coppers could have been in Richmond while under the Confederate free government, and have experienced something of the "gratitude" extended to them in their words of comment, it would have been a benefit to the country, in this way—that it would have dried up a great deal of Northern sympathy.
It seemed to me to be the general sentiment among Southern people of the more intelligent class, in response to this exhibition of Copperhead sympathy, was oftenest expressed in words similar to this:
"Why don't they come over and help us now?" "What are they talking about so much; why don't they come on?"
If I heard that sentiment expressed once, I've heard it perhaps hundreds of times, in different forms; but it seemed to me, even then, that there existed a general contempt on the part of the better people South for those in the North who sent their sympathy and encouragement through the newspaper exchanges.
On Main street, nearly opposite the newspaper office, was the general telegraph office, through which all communications by telegraph was had to all parts of the Southern Confederacy.
Inside, the office was arranged pretty much in the same general way as a bank: There was a high counter dividing the room lengthwise; that is, from the front about two-thirds of the way back, where it turned in an L-shape across the room. The front door opened into this office. Around the walls were placed the usual conveniences for writing messages, which were to be handed in at the little windows through the glass counter. I called frequently at the office for a message, which I pretended to be expecting.
It never came.
But I was not discouraged, and kept up the visit until the delivery clerk got to know me so well that he would answer my question before I put it. I thought it would be well enough to try something through this channel, and every time I went inside the office, I lounged listlessly about long enough to hear the sound of the instruments, and I never failed to hear something from the sound of the brass-tongue tickers, but that something always happened to be of no consequence. It would usually be some private message, or perhaps a long order from the army headquarters office about some commissary stores.
I remember that I was impressed at the time, from the amount of telegraphing going on on that subject, that there was certainly a war between the Commissary Departments at Richmond and the officers in the front.