ert E. Lee, who was in command of the Rebel forces in
Virginia, was not quite ready to take Washington; and so the Rebel
Congress commenced its sessions in the State capital. Mr. Memminger set
up his printing-presses, and issued his promises to pay the debts of the
Confederacy two years after the treaty of peace with the United States;
Mr. Mallory began to consider how to construct rams; while Mr. Toombs,
and his successor, Mr. Benjamin, wrote letters of instruction from the
State Department to Rebel agents in Europe, and looked longingly and
expectantly for immediate recognition of the Confederacy as an
independent power among the nations.

The sleepy city awoke to a new life. Regiments of infantry came pouring
in, not only from the hills and valleys of the Old Dominion, but from
every nook and corner of the Confederate States,--the Palmetto Guards,
Marion Rifles, Jeff-Davis Grays, Whippy-Swamp Grenadiers, Chickasaw
Braves, Tigers, Dare-Devils, and Yankee-Butchers,--fired with patriotism
and whiskey, proud to be in Richmond, to march through its streets,
beneath the flags wrought by the fair ladies of the sunny South, for
whom each man had sworn to kill a Yankee! Lieutenants, captains, majors,
colonels, and generals, glittering with golden stars, with clanking
sabres, and twinkling spurs, thronged the hotels in all the pomp of
modern chivalry. With the marching of troops, and the gathering of men
from every precinct of the Confederacy in search of official position in
the bureaus or to obtain contracts from Government,--with the rush and
whirl of business, and the inflation of prices of all commodities,--with
the stream of gayety and fashion attendant upon the Confederate court,
where Mrs. Jefferson Davis was queen-regnant,--with its gilded
drinking-saloons and gambling-hells,--Richmond became a Babylon.

"ON TO RICHMOND!"

It was a natural cry, that slogan of the North in the early months of
the war; for, in ordinary warfare, to capture an enemy's capital is
equivalent to conquering a peace. It was thought that the taking of
Richmond would be the end of the Rebellion. Time has disabused us of
this idea. To have taken Richmond in 1861 would only have been the
repacking of the Department trunks for Montgomery or some other
convenient Southern city. The vitality of the Rebellion existed not in
cities, towns, or capitals, but in that which could die only by
annihilation,--Human Slavery. That was and is the "original s