e first approach of the enemy, or upon the
retirement of our troops, fled their homes and the town not to return
until after the battle. Now the town was a hospital where gray and blue
mingled in about equal proportion. The public buildings, the courthouse,
the churches and many private dwellings were full of wounded. There had
been in some of the streets a good deal of fighting, and bullets had
thickly spattered the fences and walls, and shells had riddled the
houses from side to side. And the Rebels had done their work of pillage
there, too, in spite of the smooth-sounding general order of the Rebel
commander enjoining a sacred regard for private property--the order was
really good and would sound marvelously well abroad or in history. All
stores of drugs and medicines, of clothing, tin-ware and all groceries
had been rifled and emptied without pay or offer of recompense.
Libraries, public and private, had been entered and the books scattered
about the yards or destroyed. Great numbers of private dwellings had
been entered and occupied without ceremony and whatever was liked had
been appropriated or wantonly destroyed. Furniture had been smashed and
beds ripped open, and apparently unlicensed pillage had reigned.
Citizens and women who had remained had been kindly relieved of their
money, their jewelry and their watches--all this by the high-toned
chivalry, the army of the magnanimous Lee! Put these things by the side
of the acts of the "vandal Yankees" in Virginia, and then let mad
Rebeldom prate of honor! But the people, the women and children that had
fled, were returning, or had returned to their homes--such homes--and
amid the general havoc were restoring as they could order to the
desecrated firesides. And the faces of them all plainly told that, with
all they had lost and bad as was the condition of all things they
found, they were better pleased with such homes than with wandering
houseless in the fields with the Rebels there. All had treasures of
incidents of the battle and of the occupation of the enemy--wonderful
sights, escapes, witnessed encounters, wounds, the marvelous passage of
shells or bullets which, upon the asking, or even without, they were
willing to share with the stranger. I heard of no more than one or two
cases of any personal injury received by any of the inhabitants. One
woman was said to have been killed while at her wash-tub, sometime
during the battle; but probably by a stray bullet comin