The city was thoroughly jammed—its ordinary population of forty thousand swelled to three times that number by the sudden pressure. Of course, all the Government, with its thousand employés, had come on; and in addition, all the loose population along the railroad over which it had passed seemed to have clung to and been rolled into Richmond with it. Not only did this mania seize the wealthier and well-to-do classes, but the queerest costumes of the inland corners of Georgia and Tennessee disported themselves with perfect composure at hotels and on the streets. Besides, from ten to fifteen thousand troops were always collected, as a general rendezvous, before assignment to one of the important points—Norfolk, the Peninsula, or the Potomac lines. Although these were in camp out of town, their officers and men thronged the streets from daylight to dark, on business or pleasure bent; and the variety of uniforms—from the butternut of the Georgia private to the three stars of the flash colonel—broke the monotony of the streets pleasingly to the eye.
Hotel accommodations in Richmond were always small and plain, and now they were all overflowing. The Spotswood, Exchange and American held beds at a high premium in the parlors, halls and even on the billiard-tables. All the lesser houses were equally packed, and crowds of guests stood hungrily round the dining-room doors at meal-times, watching and scrambling for vacated seats. It was a clear case of "devil take the hindmost," for their cuisine decreased in quantity and quality in exact ratio to augmentation of their custom. The Richmond hotels, always mediocre, were now wretched. Such a thing as a clean room, a hot steak, or an answered bell were not to be bought by flagrant bribery. I would fain believe that all concerned did their best; but rapid influx absolutely overwhelmed them; and resources of the neighboring country—ample to support one-third the numbers now collected—were quickly exhausted under suddenly tripled demand. No transportation for private supplies was available in the overtaxed condition of the railroads; so the strangers, perforce, had to "grin and bear it," dry soever as the grin might be. Private boarding-houses sprang up like mushrooms on every block; bereaved relicts and ambitious spinsterhood equally clutching the chance to turn an honest penny. And naturally, ordinary trials of boarding-house life were aggravated by circumstance. Discomfort of the hotels was great enough; but, desiccated into the boarding-house can, it became simply unendurable. In this strait many private families were induced to open their doors to the better class of strangers; and gradually the whole dense population settled down, wedged into comparative quiet. Happily, my lines fell in these pleasanter places; and, whatever the unavoidable trials, it were base ingratitude in an experimental pilgrim among the mail-bags to indite a new Jeremiad thereon.
Suites of rooms had been reserved at the Spotswood hotel for the President and some of his Cabinet; so that house naturally became headquarters. Mr. Davis' office, the "Cabinet-room" with the State and Treasury Departments were located in the custom-house; and the other bureaux of the Government were relegated to the "Mechanics' Institute," an ungainly pile of bricks, formerly used as library and lecture-rooms.
The State of Virginia, though not at all on pleasure bent in inviting the Government to her capital, had yet been of frugal enough mind not to commence preparations in advance of acceptance; and the hejira followed so swiftly upon it that we plumped down into their very midst. Miss Bremer—who declared Alexandria entirely finished because she never heard the sound of a hammer—would have been more than amused at Richmond. The great halls of the Institute were cutting up into offices, with deafening clatter, day and night; and one of the Cabinet secretaries—who did not exhibit, if indeed he possessed, that aspiration ascribed to the devil when ill—swore himself almost to a shadow.
Both these public offices faced upon Capitol Square; a large, iron-fenced space, beautifully undulating and with walks winding under grand old trees. On the central hill stood the old State Capitol, picturesque from the river, but grimly dirty on close inspection. It is a plain, quadrangular construction, with Grecian pediment and columns on its south front and broad flights of steps leading to its side porticoes. Below were the halls of the legislature, now turned over to the Confederate States Congress; and in the small rotunda connecting them stood Houdon's celebrated statue of Washington—a simple but majestic figure in marble, ordered by Dr. Franklin from the French sculptor in 1785—of which Virginians are justly proud. In the cool, vaulted basement were the State officials; and above the halls the offices of the governor and the State library. That collection, while lacking many modern works, held some rare and valuable editions. It was presided over by the gentlest and most courteous littérateur of the South. Many a bedeviled and ambitious public man may still recall his quiet, modest aid, in strong contrast to the brusquerie and "insolence of office," too much the general rule; and his touching, heart-born poems were familiar at every southern hearth and camp-fireside. Soon after, the familiar voice of friendship was dulled to him—exul patriæ—by the boom of the broad Atlantic; and now his bones rest far away from those alcoves and their classic dust.
John R. Thompson, the editor of the famous "Southern Literary Messenger," went to London to edit "The Index," established in the never-relinquished hope of influencing European opinion. On reaching New York, when the cause he loved was lost, the staunch friendship of Richard Henry Stoddard and the appreciation of William Cullen Bryant found him congenial work on "The Post." But the sensitive spirit was broken; a few brief years saw the end, and only a green memory is left to those who loved, even without knowing, the purest southern poet.
From the roof of the Capitol is had the finest view of Richmond, the surrounding country lying like a map for a radius of twenty miles. Only from this bird's-eye view can a perfect idea be gained of the elevation of the city, perched above a rolling country—its stretches of meadowland below cut by the valley of the James; the river stealing in sluggish, molten silver through it, or heaving up inland into bold, tree-bearded hills, high enough to take the light from the clouds on their tops, as a halo. Far northward alternate swells of light and depressions of shadow among the hills; the far-off horizon making a girdle of purple light, blended into the blue of undefined woods. On clear days, a splendid ozone fills the air at that high perch, the picture having, as far as the eye can travel, stereoscopic clearness.
Immediately beneath lies the Square; its winding walks, rare old trees and rich sweep of sod filled with children, so full of enjoyment that one is half-minded to drop down and roll over the grass with them. On the central walk, midway between the Capitol and St. Paul's church, stands Crawford's equestrian Washington in bronze, resting upon a circular base and pedestal of plain granite, in which are bases for statues of the mighty Virginians of the past. Only the three southern ones were now occupied; but those figures—Jefferson, Mason and Henry—were accepted as surpassing in merit the central work. The Washington is imposing in size and position, but its art is open to criticism. The horse is exaggeration of pose and muscle; being equally strained, though not rampant, as that inopportune charger on which Clark Mills perched General Jackson, at the national Capital. Nor is this "first in peace" by any means "the first" on horseback; the figure being theatric rather than dignified, and the extended arm more gymnastic than statuesque.
An irate senator once told the august body he addressed that it was a warning to them—"pointing straight to the penitentiary!" So, as a whole, the group, if not thoroughly classic, may be admirably useful.
From Capitol Square, open, wide streets—neatly built up and meeting each other at right angles—stretch away on all sides; an occasional spire or dome, and frequent houses larger than the rest, breaking the monotony. Below, toward the river, lie the basins, docks and rows of warehouses; and further still is the landing, "Rockett's," the head of river navigation, above which no vessels of any size can come. Just under the Capitol—to the East—stands the governor's house, a plain, substantial mansion of the olden time, embosomed in trees and flower-beds. Further off, in the same line, rise the red and ragged slopes of Church Hill. It takes its name from the old church in which Patrick Henry made his celebrated speech—a structure still in pretty good preservation. And still further away—opposite the vanishing point of the water view—are seen the green tops of Chimborazo Heights and Howard's Grove—hospital sites, whose names have been graven upon the hearts of all southern people by the mordant of sorrow!