feet square for artillery, two and a
half by two and a half for cavalry.

The light lay warm on the Richmond houses--on mellow red brick, on pale
grey stucco. It touched old ironwork balconies and ivy-topped walls, and
it gilded the many sycamore trees, and lay in pools on the heavy leaves
of the magnolias. Below the pillared Capitol, in the green up and down
of the Capitol Square, in Main Street, in Grace Street by St. Paul's,
before the Exchange, the Ballard House, the Spotswood, on Shockoe Hill
by the President's House, through all the leafy streets there was vivid
movement. In this time and place Life was so near to Death; the ocean of
pain and ruin so evidently beat against its shores, that from very
contrast and threatened doom Life took a higher light, a deeper
splendour. All its notes resounded, nor did it easily relinquish the
major key.

In the town were many hospitals. These were being cleaned, aired, and
put in order against the impending battles. The wounded in them now,
chiefly men from the field of Seven Pines, looked on and hoped for the
best. Taking them by and large, the wounded were a cheerful set. Many
could sit by the windows, in the perfumed air, and watch the women of
the South, in their soft, full gowns, going about their country's
business. Many of the gowns were black.

About the hotels, the President's House, the governor's mansion, and the
Capitol, the movement was of the official world. Here were handsome men
in broadcloth, grown somewhat thin, somewhat rusty, but carefully
preserved and brushed. Some were of the old school and still affected
stocks and ruffled shirts. As a rule they were slender and tall, and as
a rule wore their hair a little long. Many were good Latinists, most
were good speakers. One and all they served their states as best they
knew how, overworked and anxious, facing privation here in Richmond with
the knowledge that things were going badly at home, sitting long hours
in Congress, in the Hall of Delegates, in courts or offices, struggling
there with Herculean difficulties, rising to go out and listen to
telegrams or to read bulletins. Sons, brothers, kinsmen, and friends
were in the field.

This golden afternoon, certain of the latter had ridden in from the
lines upon this or that business connected with their commands. They
were not many, for all the world knew there would be a deadly fighting
presently, deadly and prolonged. Men and officers must stay within
dru