's surrender did not lift the yoke from Richmond, in any
degree. Police regulations of the most annoying character were imposed;
the fact of a parole bearing any significance was entirely ignored; no
sort of grace was shown to its possessor, unless he took the oath; and
many men, caught in Richmond at this time and far from home, were
reduced to distress and almost starvation by the refusal of
transportation.

All this the southern people bore with patience. They submitted to all
things but two: they would not take the oath and they would not mix
socially with their conquerors. In that respect the line was as
rigorously drawn in Richmond, at that time, as ever Venice drew it
against the Austrian. Not that any attempt was omitted by the Federals
to overcome what they called this "prejudice." There was music in
Capitol Square, by the best bands of the army, and the ladies were
specially invited by the public prints. Not one went; and the officers
listened to their own music in company with numbers of lusty black
emancipated, who fully felt themselves women and sisters. Next it was
given out that the negroes would not be admitted; but then the officers
listened alone, and finally gave it up. Failing in public, every
effort--short of rudeness and intrusion, which were never resorted
to--was made to effect a social lodgment in private. But no Federal
uniform ever crossed a rebel threshold, in those days, save on
business. The officers occupied parts of many houses; but they were
made to feel that the other part, occupied by the household, was
private still.

Another infliction, harder to bear, was the well-meant intrusion of old
friends from the North. Pleasure parties to Richmond were of constant
occurrence; and for the time quite eclipsed in popularity, with the
Washington idlers, the inevitable pilgrimage to Mt. Vernon. Gaily
dressed and gushing over in the merriment of a party of pleasure, these
visitors often sought out their _ante-bellum_ friends; and then and
there would condone the crime of rebellion to them--sitting in
desolation by the ashes of their household gods. It is not hard to
understand how bitter was proffered forgiveness, to those who never
admitted they could have been wrong; and perhaps the soft answer that
turneth away wrath, was not always given to such zealously officious
friends.

There was little bitterness expressed, however much may have fermented
in the hearts of the captured; and, as a gene