Chapter 7 - Page 2

and when I attempted to return to my own I was prevented by the
guard.

Crossing the long bridge, our train came to a halt on the other side of
the river with the usual clamor of bell and whistle, the usual seemingly
purposeless and vacillating, almost dizzying, running backward and
forward on a network of sidetracks and switches, that seemed unavoidably
necessary, a dozen years ago, in getting a train into a City.

Still unable to regain my comrades and share their fortunes, I was
marched off with the Tennesseeans through the City to the office of some
one who had charge of the prisoners of war.

The streets we passed through were lined with retail stores, in which
business was being carried on very much as in peaceful times. Many
people were on the streets, but the greater part of the men wore some
sort of a uniform. Though numbers of these were in active service, yet
the wearing of a military garb did not necessarily imply this. Nearly
every able-bodied man in Richmond was; enrolled in some sort of an
organization, and armed, and drilled regularly. Even the members of the
Confederate Congress were uniformed and attached, in theory at least, to
the Home Guards.

It was obvious even to the casual glimpse of a passing prisoner of war,
that the City did not lack its full share of the class which formed so
large an element of the society of Washington and other Northern Cities
during the war--the dainty carpet soldiers, heros of the promenade and
the boudoir, who strutted in uniforms when the enemy was far off, and
wore citizen's clothes when he was close at hand. There were many curled
darlings displaying their fine forms in the nattiest of uniforms, whose
gloss had never suffered from so much as a heavy dew, let alone a rainy
day on the march. The Confederate gray could be made into a very dressy
garb. With the sleeves lavishly embroidered with gold lace, and the
collar decorated with stars indicating the wearer's rank--silver for the
field officers, and gold for the higher grade,--the feet compressed into
high-heeled, high-instepped boots, (no Virginian is himself without a
fine pair of skin-tight boots) and the head covered with a fine, soft,
broad-brimmed hat, trimmed with a gold cord, from which a bullion tassel
dangled several inches down the wearer's back, you had a military swell,
caparisoned for conquest--among the fair sex.

On our way we passed the noted Capitol of Virginia--a handsome marble
building,--of the column-fronted Grecian temple style. It stands in the
center of the City. Upon the grounds is Crawford's famous equestrian
statue of Washington, surrounded by smaller statues of other
Revolutionary patriots.

The Confederate Congress was then in session in the