shining, and drove the Rebels. After that we might have walked straight into Richmond, but McClellan had to stop and go to digging."

We dismounted in a sheltered spot, to examine our maps, then passed through the woods by a cross-road to Savage's Station, coming out upon a large undulating field. Of Savage's house only the foundations were left, surrounded by a grove of locust-trees. My companions described to me the scene of McClellan's retreat from this place, the hurry, the confusion, the flames of government property abandoned and destroyed. Sutlers forsook their goods. Even the officers' baggage was devoted to the torch. A single pile of hard tack, measuring forty cubic feet, was set on fire, and burned. Then came the battle of Savage's Station, in which the corps of Franklin and Sumner, by determined fighting, saved our army from being overwhelmed by the entire Rebel force. This was Sunday again, the twenty-ninth of June: so great had been the change wrought by four short weeks! On that other Sunday the Rebels were routed, and the campaign, as some aver, might have been gloriously ended by the capture of Richmond. Now nothing was left for us but ignominious retreat and failure, which proved all the more humiliating, falling so suddenly upon the hopes with which real or fancied successes had inspired the nation.

PETERSBURG.

205

CHAPTER XXVII.

IN AND ABOUT PETERSBURG.

ON Wednesday, September 27th, I left Richmond for Petersburg. The railroad bridge having been burned, I crossed the river in a coach, and took the cars at Manchester. A ride of twenty miles through tracts of weeds and undergrowth, pine barrens and oaken woods, passing occasionally a drearylooking house and field of "sorry" corn, brought us within sight of the "Cockade City." 1

It was evening when I arrived. Having a letter from Governor Pierpoint to a prominent citizen, I sallied out by moonlight from my hotel, and picked my way, along the streets sloping up from the river bank, to his house.

Judge — received me in his library, and kept me until a late hour listening to him. His conversation was of the war, and the condition in which it had left the country. He portrayed the ruin of the once proud and prosperous State, and the sufferings of the people. "Yet, when all is told," said he, "you cannot realize their sufferings, more than if you had never heard of them." His remarks touching the freedmen were refreshing, after the abundance of cant on the subject to which I had been treated. He thought they were destined to be crowded out of Virginia, which was adapted to white labor, but that they would occupy the more southern States, and become a useful class of citizens. Many were leaving their homes, with the idea that they must do so in order fully to assert their freedom; but the majority of them were still at work for their old masters. He was already convinced that the new system would prove more profitable to employers

1 The title given to it by President Madison, in speaking of the gallantry of the Petersburg Volunteers, in the war of 1812.

than the old one. Formerly he kept eight family servants; now he had but three, who, stimulated by wages, did the work of all.

One of his former servants, to whom he had granted many privileges, came to him, after the war closed, and said, "You a'n't going to turn me away, I hope, master."

"No, William," said the Judge. "As long as I have a home, you have one. But I have no money to hire you." William replied that he would like to stay, and work right along just as he had done hitherto. "And as for money, master, I reckon we can manage that."

"How so, William ?"

"You see, master, you've been so kind to me these past years I've done a good deal outside, and if you have no money now, I reckon I must lend you some."

The faithful fellow brought out his little treasure, and offered it to his old master, who, however, had not the heart to ac cept it.

The Judge also told a story of a free negro to whom he had often loaned money without security before the war. Recently this negro had come to him again, and asked the old question, "Have you plenty of money, master?”

"Ah, James," said the Judge, "I used to have plenty, and I always gave you what you wanted, but you must go to somebody else now, for I have n't a dollar."

“That's what I was thinking," said James. "I have n't come to borrow this time, but to lend." And, taking out a fifty-dollar note, with tears in his eyes he entreated the Judge to take it.

I noticed that the library had a new door, and that the walls around it were spotted with marks of repairs. "These are the effects of a shell that paid us a flying visit one morning, during the bombardment. Fortunately, no one was hurt."

He accepted the results of the war in such a candid and loyal spirit as I had rarely seen manifested by the late governing class in Virginia. If such men could be placed in power, the sooner the State were fully restored to its place in the Union, the better; but, alas!

BOMBARDMENT OF PETERSBURG.

207

Returning to the hotel, I missed my way, and seeing a light in a little grocery store, went in to make inquiries. I found two negroes talking over the bombardment. Finding me a stranger, and interested, they invited me to stop, and rehearsed the story for my benefit.

The shelling began on the first of July, 1864. It was most rapid on the third. Roofs and chimneys and walls were knocked to pieces. All the lower part of the town was deserted. Many of the inhabitants fled to the country; some remained there in camps, others got over their fright and returned. "We went up on Market Street, and got into a bomb-proof we made of cotton bales." The bombardment was kept up until the first of October, and afterwards resumed at intervals. "Finally people got so they did n't care anything about it. I saw two men killed by picking up shells and looking at them; they exploded in their hands."

At the time of the evacuation the negroes "had to keep right dark" to avoid being carried away by their masters. Some went across the Appomattox, and had to swim back, the bridges being burned.

They described to me the beauty of the scene when the mortars were playing in the night, and the heavens were spanned with arches of fire.

"It was a right glad day for us when the Rebels went out and the Federals came in; and I don't believe any of the people could say with conscientiousness they were sorry,they had all suffered so much. The Rebels set all the tobaccowarehouses afire, and burned up the foundery and commissary stores. That was Sunday. Monday morning they went out, and the Federals came in, track after track, without an hour between them."

These two negroes were brothers, and men of decided character and intelligence, although they had been slaves all their lives. They learned to read in a spelling-book when children by the firelight of their hut. "I noticed how white children. called their letters; and afterwards I learned to write without any showing, by copying the writing-letters in the spelling

book. I learned to read in such a silent manner, it was a long time before I could make any head reading loud. I learned arithmetic by myself in the same way."

If any person of white skin, who has risen to eminence, is known to have acquired the rudiments of education under such difficulties, much is made of the circumstance. But in the case of a poor black man, a slave, I suppose it is different. The two addressed each other with great respect and affec tion. Their feeling of kinship and of family worth was very strong. "There were four brothers of us," said the elder; "and I am the only one of them that ever went to the prisonhouse. After my old, kind master died, I had a difficulty with my mistress; she was very exasperating in her language to me, till I lost my temper, and said I could live in torment, but I could n't live with her, and wished she would sell me. She sent for an officer; and I said, I am as willing to go to jail as I am to take a drink of water.' When the sheriff saw me, he was very much surprised, and he said, Why, John, why are you here?' I told him I had parted with my temper, and said what no man ought to have said to a woman. He said, 'What a pity! such a name as your master gave you, John!' He interceded with my mistress, and the fourth day she had me taken out. I told her I had acknowledged my fault to my Maker, and I was willing to acknowledge it to her. She said she was wrong too; and we agreed very well after that. I was a very valuable servant to her. I could whitewash, mend a fence, put in glass, use tools, serve up a dinner, and then wait on it as gracefully as any man that ever walked around a table. Then I would hitch up the carriage, and drive her out. And I have never seen the day yet when she has given me five dollars."

He had always thought deeply on the subject of his condition. "But I never felt at liberty to speak my mind until they passed an act to put colored men into the army. That wrought pon my feelings so I could n't but cry;" and the tears were n his eyes again at the recollection. "They asked me if I would fight for my country. I said, 'I have no country.