nce neat court-house stands by the roadside a monument to
treason and rebellion, deprived of its white picket fence, stripped
of window blinds, cases, and dome, walls defaced by various
hieroglyphics, the judge's bench a target for the 'expectorating'
Yankee;' the circular enclosure occupied by the jury was besmeared
with mud, and valuable documents, of every description, scattered
about the floor and yard--it is, indeed, a sad picture of what an
infatuated people will bring upon themselves. In one corner of the
yard stands a house of records, in which were deposited all the
important deeds and papers pertaining to this section for a
generation past. When our advance entered the building, they were
found lying about the floor to the depth of fifteen inches or more
around the doorsteps and in the dooryard. It is impossible to
estimate the inconvenience and losses which will be incurred by
this wholesale destruction of deeds, claims, mortgages, etc. I
learned that a squadron of exasperated cavalry, who passed this way
not long since, committed the mischief. The jail across the way,
where many a poor fugitive has doubtless been imprisoned for
striking out for freedom, is now used as a guardhouse. As I write,
the bilious countenance of a culprit is peeping through the iron
grates of a window, who, may be, is atoning for having invaded a
henroost or bagged an unsuspecting pig. Our soldiers have rendered
animal life almost extinct in this part of the Old Dominion.
Indeed, wherever the army goes, there can be heard on every side
the piercing wail of expiring pork, the plaintive lowing of a
stricken bovine, or suppressed cry of an unfortunate gallinacious.'

Here is a scene familiar to many a Union soldier who gazed at sunset
upon the vast encampment:

'Along the horizon a broad belt of richest amber spread far away
toward north and south; and above, the spent, ragged rain clouds of
deep purple, suffused with crimson, were woven and braided with
pure gold. Slowly from the face of the heavens they melted and
passed away as darkness came on, leaving the clear sky studded with
stars, and the crescent moon shedding a soft radiance below. I
climbed to the top of a hill not far off, and looked across the
country. On every eminence, in every little hollow almost, were