The patronizing and superior manner with which those Richmond people talked of the battle of Ball's Bluff, which, in fact, was almost a massacre, made such an impression on my mind that time has not and never can efface.
The Richmond papers, too, in those days, I recall very distinctly, found it necessary to apologize for, or defend, General Stone, for his part in the affair.
It was through this press channel that we heard of General Butler's operations in North Carolina. The old man had evidently done something down there that hurt very much, which they did not print, as the city press was filled almost every day with abuse of him and the Yankees.
I gathered that it was about Henry A. Wise, who had a son or a brother killed by Butler's operations. One would think, from the manner in which the Virginians went on about this "outrage," that the Yankees had no right to kill a Virginia gentleman under any circumstances.
While I am on the subject of the Richmond press, I must not forget to explain that, as printing paper was becoming quite scarce in the South, they were obliged to economize, and frequently the Richmond Examiner and Whig appeared in half-sheets and letters; the quality of the paper became so inferior as to resemble in appearance the reverse side of the cheapest wall-paper.
I sent to the North, through the blockade, several times, marked copies of the Richmond papers.
The Pittsburgh Chronicle actually published, while I was yet in Virginia, an extract from one of those papers, in which were some caustic comments on a case of a certain well-known Presbyterian clergyman of Allegheny, who had been dismissed by his church there for some harsh expressions of sympathy for the South.
I was thanked by name for the "courtesy" in sending the paper, which was exhibited at the office as a great curiosity, and am thankful even now, on reflection, that the Pittsburgh papers were not on the Richmond exchange list.
There were no earthworks of any description around Richmond in 1861. This is a fact that is not generally known.
When I was before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, some months after the date of which I am writing, there was an effort being made by some of the Congressmen to prove to the country that McClellan's inactivity during the fall and winter was wholly inexcusable. This truth was fully brought out at the time and the facts proven.