It would require volumes to describe the ravages of war in Virginia: let a few pictures, selected from sketches made on the spot, indicate the melancholy aspect of a domain, a few weeks or months before smiling in peace and productiveness. The following facetious but faithful statement, though confined to a special, applies to many districts:

'The once neat court-house stands by the roadside a monument to treason and rebellion, deprived of its white picket fence, stripped of window blinds, cases, and dome, walls defaced by various hieroglyphics, the judge's bench a target for the 'expectorating' Yankee;' the circular enclosure occupied by the jury was besmeared with mud, and valuable documents, of every description, scattered about the floor and yard—it is, indeed, a sad picture of what an infatuated people will bring upon themselves. In one corner of the yard stands a house of records, in which were deposited all the important deeds and papers pertaining to this section for a generation past. When our advance entered the building, they were found lying about the floor to the depth of fifteen inches or more around the doorsteps and in the dooryard. It is impossible to estimate the inconvenience and losses which will be incurred by this wholesale destruction of deeds, claims, mortgages, etc. I learned that a squadron of exasperated cavalry, who passed this way not long since, committed the mischief. The jail across the way, where many a poor fugitive has doubtless been imprisoned for striking out for freedom, is now used as a guardhouse. As I write, the bilious countenance of a culprit is peeping through the iron grates of a window, who, may be, is atoning for having invaded a henroost or bagged an unsuspecting pig. Our soldiers have rendered animal life almost extinct in this part of the Old Dominion. Indeed, wherever the army goes, there can be heard on every side the piercing wail of expiring pork, the plaintive lowing of a stricken bovine, or suppressed cry of an unfortunate gallinacious.'

Here is a scene familiar to many a Union soldier who gazed at sunset upon the vast encampment:

'Along the horizon a broad belt of richest amber spread far away toward north and south; and above, the spent, ragged rain clouds of deep purple, suffused with crimson, were woven and braided with pure gold. Slowly from the face of the heavens they melted and passed away as darkness came on, leaving the clear sky studded with stars, and the crescent moon shedding a soft radiance below. I climbed to the top of a hill not far off, and looked across the country. On every eminence, in every little hollow almost, were innumerable lights shining, some thick and countless as stars, indicating an encampment; others isolated upon the outskirts; here and there the glowing furnace of a bakery; the whole land as far as the eye could see looking like another heaven wherein some ambitious archangel, covetous of creative power, had attempted to rival the celestial splendors of the one above us. There was no sound of drum or fife or bugle; the sweet notes of the 'good-night' call had floated into space and silence a half hour before; only on the still air were heard the voices of a hand of negroes chanting solemnly and slowly, to a familiar sacred tune, the words of some pious psalm.'

We may realize the effect of the armed occupation upon economical and social life by a few facts noted after a successful raid:

'In the counties visited there were but few rebels found at home, except the very old and the very young. In nine days' travel I did not see fifty able-bodied men who were not in some way connected with the army. Nearly every branch of business is at a standstill. The shelves in stores are almost everywhere empty; the shop of the artisan is abandoned and in ruins. The people who are to be seen passively submit to all that emanates from Richmond without a murmur; they are for the most part simple minded, and ignorant of all that is transpiring in the great theatre about them. An intelligent-looking man in Columbia laughed heartily when told that Union troops occupied New Orleans—Jefferson Davis would let them know it were such the fact; and I could not find a man who would admit that the Confederates had ever been beaten in a single engagement. These people do not even read the Richmond papers, and about all the information they do obtain is what is passed about in the primitive style, from mouth to mouth. Before this raid they believed that the Union soldiers were anything but civilized beings, and were stricken with terror when their approach was heralded. Of six churches seen in one day, in only one had there been religious services held within six months. One half at least of the dwelling houses are unoccupied, and fast going to decay.'

Not all the land is ill adapted to cool actions and strategy; there are sections naturally fortified, and these have been the scenes of military vicissitudes memorable, extreme, picturesque, and fatal. Here is an instance:

'There is no town in the United States which exhibits more deplorably the ravages of war than Harper's Ferry. More than half the buildings are in ruins, and those now inhabited are occupied by small dealers and peddlers, who follow troops, and sell at exorbitant prices, tarts and tinware, cakes and crockery, pipes and poultry, shoes and shirts, soap and sardines. The location is one of peculiar beauty. The Potomac receives the Shenandoah at this point; each stream flowing through its own deep, wild, winding valley, until it washes the base of the promontory, on the sides and summit of which are scattered the houses and ruins of the town. The rapids of the rivers prevent navigation, and make the fords hazardous. The piers of an iron bridge and a single section still remaining, indicate a once beautiful structure; and a pontoon substitute shows the presence of troops. An occasional canal boat suggests a still continued effort at traffic, and transport railcars prove action in the quartermaster's department. The mountains are 'high and hard to climb.' The jagged sides of slate rock rise vertically, in many places to lofty heights, inducing the sensation of fear lest they should fall, while riding along the road which winds under the threatening cliffs. The mountains are crowned with batteries, 'like diadems across the brow,' and the Hottentoty-Sibley tents dot the ridges like miniature anthills.'

But within and around the capital of Virginia cluster the extreme associations of her history: these memories and memorials of patriotism hallow the soil whereon the chief traitors inaugurated their infamous rule; the trial of Burr and the burning of the theatre are social traditions which make Richmond a name fraught with tragic and political interest; her social and forensic annals are illustrious; and, hereafter, among the many anomalies of the nation's history, few will more impress the thoughtful reminiscent than that a city eminent for social refinement and long the honored resort of the most eminent American statesmen and jurists, the seat of elegant hospitality and the shrine of national fame, was, for years, desecrated by the foulest prisons, filled with brave American citizens, who were subjected to insults and privations such as only barbarians could inflict, for no cause but the gallant defence of the national honor and authority against a slaveholders' rebellion.

But perhaps no coincidence is more impressive in the late experience of a Union soldier in Virginia than the associations then and there awakened by the recurrence of the anniversary of the birth of her noblest son and our matchless patriot: