greenbacks; and suffering became actual and pinching. Then came the
order that the Federal commissary was to issue rations to those needing
them. Pinching themselves, as they did; preferring to subsist on the
slenderest food that would sustain life, to accepting the charity of
the enemy--many of those suffering women were driven by sheer
hunger--by the threatened starvation of their children, or of the loved
wounded ones near them--to seek the proffered bounty. They forced their
way into the surging, fighting crowd of greasy and tattered negroes, of
dark-faced "bummers" and "loyal" residents--and they received small
rations of cornmeal and codfish; bearing them home to be eaten with
what bitter seasoning they might of tears from pain and humiliation.

The direst destitution of the war had been nothing to this. With their
own people around them, with hope and love to sustain them, the women
of Richmond did not wince under the pinch of want. But now, surrounded
by enemies, with not a pound of flour, or a cent of currency, actual
starvation--as well as humiliation--stared them in the face. The few
who went to draw rations, sat down in blank despair. They _could not_
make up their minds to go again. The fewer still, who had the least
surplus from immediate wants, distributed it freely; and a cup of sugar
from a slender stock was bartered here for a few slices of the hoarded
ham, or a pound or two of necessary meal.

Meantime, sutlers, peddlers and hucksters swarmed in like locusts, on
the very first steamers up the river. They crowded Broad street, the
unburned stores on Main, and even the alleyways, with great piles of
every known thing that could be put up in tin. They had calculated on a
rich harvest; but they had reckoned without their host. There was no
money in Richmond to spend with them; and after a profitless sojourn,
they took up their tin cans, and one by one returned North--certainly
wiser and, possibly, better men. It was peculiar to note the
universality of southern sympathy among these traders. There was
scarcely one among them who didn't think the war "a darned shame;" they
were intensely sympathetic and all came from South of the Pennsylvania
line. But the supporters, either of their principles, or their trade,
were the few lucky negroes who could collect "stamps," in never so
small qualities; and to such the sutlers were a joy forever.

Shut off entirely from any communication with their retreating troo