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Richmond Revisited 
 
 BY 
 
 A FEDERAL 
 
 [J. T. HOLIES] 
 
 18 6 5 — 1 9 5 
 
 COLUMBUS, OHIO 
 
 t 
 
 COLUMBUS, OHIO 
 
 THE BERLIN PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 i 9° 5 
 
TRsl-h 
 
 Copyright, 1905 
 
To 
 
 My " Few Surviving Comrades," 
 who saw the fallen confederate capital on their 
 
 NORTHWARD MARCH, MAY llTH, 1865, 
 
 AND TO THE FRIENDS OF THOSE COMRADES AND OF THE 
 
 OTHERS WHO HAVE MARCHED ON. 
 
OLD POINT COMFORT, VIRGINIA 
 
 August 25, 1905 
 
 "LOOKING BACKWARD" 
 
 The title is true, as we shall see, in a double sense, 
 and, in making the record, there will be no special sepa- 
 ration of the senses. The one will have reference to 
 the record of things since noon of the 25th inst. ; the 
 other will relate to the longer look back to the close of 
 the Rebellion and away beyond to the older days of the 
 Old Dominion. 
 
 We left the mountains and after a long, dusty, 
 crowded, hot railroad ride found splendid quarters at 
 "The Richmond" immediately overlooking the capitol 
 square to the east and looking down on St. Paul's, just 
 across Grace Street, to the south, where Jefferson 
 Davis was worshiping wmen General Lee's telegram 
 declaring that Richmond could be held no longer by 
 the Confederate forces was delivered to him, and from 
 which the flight of Davis began, to end in his capture 
 by the Michigan Cavalry, down in Georgia, a few days 
 
 5 
 
O RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 later. This was in April 1865. The capture occurred 
 at Trwinsville, Georgia, May 10. We were on the 
 campaign from Goldsboro and in the vicinity of 
 Raleigh, North Carolina, and on the northward march 
 home during this period. 
 
 In the capitol grounds are the Washington and 
 Stonewall Jackson monumental statues and statues of 
 other Virginia heroes and statesmen ; the old Capitol of 
 the Commonwealth, the second capitol of the Confed- 
 eracy, the State House at Montgomery, Alabama, hav- 
 ing been the first for a brief perod. On the lawn in 
 front of the capitol building stands the old bell tower, a 
 little structure in which the state house bell used to be 
 kept and rung on appropriate occasions. The bell dis- 
 appeared earl}' in the civil war with large quantities 
 of other public and private bronze, or brass, to help 
 make artillery for the Southern Army. The bell has 
 not been replaced. 
 
 I saw the square as it. was in May, 1865, and have 
 never seen it since until now. In the lapse of time, 
 somehow, the old city hall, on the north side of it, had, 
 in my mind, become the capitol building. 
 
 On that northward march, we camped over night 
 outside of Manchester, which is on the south side of 
 the James, opposite Richmond, and made our crossing 
 in the forenoon of that early May day in 1865, and, 
 keeping to the right of the burned district, marched 
 up the street east of the capitol, turned west above the 
 Governor's mansion and, at the northwest corner of 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 7 
 
 the square, turned south on Ninth and then west on 
 Franklin, where we passed Lee's house, now the home 
 of the Virginia Historical Society. The General was 
 then at home, but there was no sign of life about the 
 residence as we passed ; the doors were closed ; the 
 blinds were closed. 
 
 Not a soul made any demonstration as we marched 
 by the home of the fallen military leader of the Re- 
 bellion. I was at the head, and in command, of the 
 regiment. Soon after passing the Lee mansion, we 
 turned northward and were speedily out of the city 
 and away for Washington City, muster out and home, 
 of course, not forgetting the Grand Review, in Wash- 
 ington, of May 23 and 24. That of the western army 
 occurred on the latter day. The march of Sherman's 
 troops through Richmond was evidently arranged to 
 give the boys a view of the capital of the Confederacy, 
 which they had helped to destroy, the burned district, 
 the capitol building and the home of its greatest gen- 
 eral as well as of the magnificent equestrian statue of 
 Washington, and so on. 
 
 Upon arrival yesterday, T had ordered the carriage, 
 which conveyed us from the station to the hotel, to 
 return for us at 6 o'clock so that we might drive out 
 the hour or more of daylight, seeing points of interest 
 in the city. On time, we started. My direction to the 
 colored driver, about fifty years of age, was to go first 
 to the north end of the old Manchester bridge over the 
 river, then follow as nearly as possible, the outer east- 
 
8 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 ern edge of what had been the burned district until he 
 came to the capitol square and then I'd tell him where 
 to go. He said he could easily do this. 
 
 Accordingly, he drove us down to the present public 
 bridge for street cars, vehicles and pedestrians between 
 Richmond and Manchester and was well out to the 
 crest, which is over the lower end of Belle Isle, when I 
 discovered that it was a new bridge and in a new loca- 
 tion, several hundred yards further down the river than 
 the war-time structure. Libby prison was gone and 
 without any mark on it I did not, at the moment, iden- 
 tify Castle Thunder, which was just below and near 
 it, close to the river bank. 1 turned the driver back 
 and up stream to a point in sight of the end of the old 
 bridge, which, or a successor, is there still. Then, I 
 told the "colored gentleman" to follow my directions 
 about skirting the old burned district. He started and 
 it soon became apparent that he was a comparative 
 stupid, for he was breaking straight for General Lee's 
 house, and said he was going round the burnt district 
 next. I suppose that most of his driving is for ex- 
 Confederates and that the first point, after the old 
 capitol, is General Lee's house and he was following 
 the force and operation of the habit thus formed. I 
 half way gave him up to "hardness of heart and rep- 
 robacy of mind" on the subject of the sights of the 
 city and let him have his own head for the remainder 
 of the day. Driving down through what had been 
 the burned district, now well built up, he showed us 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 9 
 
 the little, one-story, stone house, standing" flush with 
 the sidewalk, which was once General Washington's 
 Headquarters, now so marked by a permanent tablet. 
 The story is not more than nine feet high and the 
 front must be about twenty-two feet on the sidewalk. 
 Taller old buildings almost crowd up against it on the 
 north and south sides. It faces the southeast, i. e., it 
 is on the north side of the street. 
 
 In fewest words, it was and is "a stone cabin." 
 Within a long stone's throw of the headquarters, 
 going toward the river, we came to the site of the 
 famous — nay, the infamous — Libby Prison. It is now 
 occupied by an ice plant. During the Chicago Expo- 
 sition, or immediately prior to its opening, and as one 
 of the attractions, Richmond consented and Chicago 
 removed the prison building from the banks of the 
 James to the shores of Lake Michigan. It has always 
 seemed to me a foolish thing on the part of each party 
 thereto. Chicago could gain very little ; Richmond 
 could shake off nothing of the disgrace, whatever there 
 was of it, by the removal. Preserving or destroying 
 it, on its own ground, might have been a question 
 worthy of ■ consideration, but removal to Chicago was 
 not so, in fact. 
 
 On the same side of the street, i. e., the river side, 
 and 250 or 300 feet further east is Castle Thunder, still 
 standing, the substantial counterpart of Libby, a large, 
 homely, three-story, brick building, used before the 
 war as a tobacco warehouse. A smaller brick build- 
 
10 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 ing, a tobacco factory, which stood between the two 
 tobacco warehouses, or prisons, is still standing and in 
 use. There is, of course, the decay of age over them, 
 but the buildings have changed very little in appearance 
 since I saw them forty years ago. They were and are 
 in plain view from the bridge over the river at the 
 point where we crossed from Manchester. In May, 
 1865, each was marked with a large placard affixed to 
 the up-river side, "Libby," "Castle Thunder," so that 
 the boys might not miss them as they entered the Con- 
 federate Capital. 
 
 From this point the driver went up Libby hill on the 
 way to Chimborazo Park, which is further down the 
 river. On this hill stands the Confederate monument 
 perhaps 60 to 75 feet high, surmounted by the statue 
 of a typical Confederate soldier. From the top of 
 Chimborazo one has a splendid view of Richmond to 
 the west, of the river, looking up and down stream, on 
 the city's south side, and of Manchester and the roll- 
 ing country on the south, southeast and southwest. 
 The thought which arose in my mind as the carriage 
 stopped, after circling the summit, was that the Con- 
 federate Capital had its "magnificent distances" as well 
 as Washington City. At one's feet, so to speak, lay 
 all Richmond and its environs. To the east, partially 
 seen, lies the National Cemetery ; to the west and north- 
 west the city, the capitol building, the hotels, "The 
 Richmond," surpassed by none in prominence, in the 
 picture, the new magnificent City Hall, the Confederate 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. II 
 
 White House, where Jefferson Davis lived during the 
 life of his Confederate government, after the removal 
 from Montgomery, and beyond, up the river, Holly- 
 wood Cemetery, where the illustrious, or some of the 
 illustrious of the south and of the nation, and thou- 
 sands of Confederate dead, repose. 
 
 The sun had gone down and in the twilight we came 
 down the hill and crossed the wide valley and ascended 
 the other slope to go some distance north to the Davis 
 residence, a massive old Colonial structure, three 
 stories high, with a row of towering white columns 
 along the south front, a small yard or lawn, in which 
 lies the great iron shaft of the Merrimac, conquered by 
 die Monitor, after most destructive work among the 
 Federal shipping at Newport News, during the war. 
 The house stands on the east side and at the north end 
 of a short street, perhaps a half a mile n. n. e. of the 
 capitol. On its east is a steep slope, almost a bluff, 
 with no houses near it ; on the north, is a little park 
 around which one drives to pass the rear, which really 
 looks like the front of the house. 
 
 The house is a large one and would furnish the sub- 
 ject of an interesting history. It is now used as a relic 
 depository, principally, I imagine, of the late Confed- 
 eracy. Nothing so large was ever more completely 
 swept away than the Confederate States of America, 
 and I am glad that its history, in completest and mi- 
 nutest forms, shall be preserved. The same principle 
 with me applies, which objects to the folly that re- 
 
12 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 moved Libby Prison to Chicago. In Richmond, it 
 was at home, in every way appropriate; in Chicago it 
 is an anachronism, so to speak. In the former place, 
 it was where it should be, so long as it might endure ; 
 in Chicago, no lapse of time can ever make it seem in 
 place. With Richmond and its past, it had all things 
 in common ; with Chicago and its past, or present, or 
 future, it had, has, can have, nothing in common, 
 though every brick and every piece of wood were 
 marked so that the reconstruction, as it now stands, by 
 the lake is complete and identical. It was so that they 
 undertook to transplant the old structure and they 
 substantially succeeded. 
 
 Richmond might say to Chicago, "If you can make 
 anything out of Libby, take it, we shall have its mate 
 and equal in infamy left — Castle Thunder." It was 
 like Chicago to take it, but still the transfer was un- 
 wisdom on the part of each city, from my standpoint. 
 Once touching the subject was enough, however, on 
 this record. 
 
 On our way from the White House to "The Rich- 
 mond," we passed the splendid home of Miss Van 
 Lew, who remained loyal to the Union and stayed at 
 her own house all through the war. She constructed 
 cells under her residence in which she concealed Fed- 
 eral soldiers, who made their escapes from the Con- 
 federate prisons within the city, and aided them on 
 their way back to "God's country." After the war, 
 much to the disgruntlement of the Confederates of 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 1 3 
 
 Richmond, she was made postmistress of the city — I 
 think — by General Grant, while President. The prop- 
 erty — large house and grounds — now belongs to the 
 Virginia Club, Confederate, no doubt, — a sort of re- 
 taliation against the memory of its former patriotic 
 mistress. The house stands on the left hand side of 
 the street as one goes from the White House to the 
 capitol. The cells, constructed beneath it by Miss Van 
 Lew's workmen, are said to remain unchanged. 
 
 The final point of interest before reaching the hotel 
 was the St. John's Church, on our left, standing in a 
 lot — a little old graveyard — raised — walled up — some 
 six or eight feet above the sidewalk, well covered with 
 trees, in which identical building Patrick Henry made 
 his immortal speech, "Give me liberty, or give me 
 death." I have been unable, away from the books, to 
 recall, with certainty, whether or not it was in the 
 same oration, or on some other occasion, that he said, 
 "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Perhaps 
 it was Jefferson who made this latter pertinent sug- 
 gestion.* 
 
 The church is a rather large frame structure, some 
 additions having been made since the speech was de- 
 livered, one hundred and thirty years ago. There are 
 
 ^''Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" is part of an 
 inscription on a cannon marking the grave of John Brad- 
 shaw in the Island of Jamaica. 
 
 It was found among Mr. Jefferson's papers in his hand- 
 writing, but one of his biographers credits its inspiration to 
 Dr. Franklin.— Randall, Vol. 3, p. 585. 
 
14 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 old tombstones in the yard, one we read from the street 
 as early as 1805. It was growing dark and we did not 
 stop to go over the church and the grounds. 
 
 Richmond is distinctly a southern city, with very 
 slight injections of the Yankee spirit or the results of 
 the Yankee's enterprise. In going about it, I obtain 
 the impression here and there that the old southern 
 ways have yielded, are yielding, somewhat, in spots, to 
 that progressive spirit and enterprise. Still, there re- 
 mains the former type and, in very many things, the 
 former fact and fashion stand and prevail against in- 
 novations. There is a beauty in many, and, undoubt- 
 edly, a grandeur in some, of the elder facts and fash- 
 ions of the southern people. There was an ease, a 
 deliberation, a self-possession, in the personal life, 
 which would make one happy in enjoyment now. It 
 was the very antipode of the restless, nervous, cease- 
 less rush of northern modern life. I know the war is 
 over, but if the fast life of the northern people had 
 impregnated the life of the southern people at the close 
 of the civil war, it would have tended to the earlier 
 closing of the "bloody chasm" and the obliteration of 
 the marks of the strife in the hearts and lives and 
 business of the American people ; but there was the 
 rub. They were not quick to fall into the ways of 
 their "conquerors" and were slow to change what was 
 almost nature with them. 
 
 The old city of Richmond — 1 mean as it was forty 
 years ago — may still be recognized. It is there, the 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 15 
 
 old residences, the old business houses, stand, very 
 many of them unchanged by time, or trade. The ex- 
 tensions of the suburbs show the new spirit ; so do the 
 new and larger buildings of the city, such as the splen- 
 did city hall and the great hotel buildings, eight or ten 
 stories high. 
 
 1 incline to think that when the capitol is recon- 
 structed and its wings are finally completed, they will 
 constitute an imposing and attractive building in which 
 Virginia's public business will be transacted. 
 
 * Tired and exhausted to the last degree by the long 
 ride from "Ronceverte, where there had been little sleep 
 
 * When we encamped above Manchester, May 10, 1865, 
 General H. Wagner Halleck was in Richmond and had 
 issued his order for our 14th Army Corps of Sherman's 
 Army to pass in review before him as it marched through 
 the city. In the events connected with the surrender of 
 Johnson's Army, Halleck had affronted Sherman deeply 
 and when the proposition was made to review us, Sherman 
 said no, and added some swear words, which do not appear 
 in the official records of the rebellion. The boys were be- 
 hind their General and Halleck, regarding discretion as the 
 better part of valor, quietly waived the review after he 
 heard from Sherman and after the latter had ordered his 
 army to march through Richmond with the rout step and 
 at a right shoulder shift. Halleck chose the better part 
 and, like Lee, kept out of sight while we threaded the ave- 
 nues of the fallen and badly burned capital. He was power- 
 less against the sentiment and the blood which were aroused 
 in the western army. The latter was, like its General, fight- 
 ing mad and General Halleck had absolutely nothing to 
 commend him to their favorable consideration, but had done 
 much to arouse their resentment. 
 
 The closing incident of the day is omitted here to be in- 
 serted later on because of the setting which later scenes and 
 facts will give it. 
 
I 6 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 the night before and by the hot and exhausting atmos- 
 phere of the valley ride from about noon, and no doubt 
 affected by the excitement and mental activity super- 
 induced by the memories freshly stirred by the review 
 of old, and the consideration of new, scenes and inci- 
 dents, I crept into bed an excessively tired person in 
 body, mind and spirit. 
 
 Friday 26th was as full of Richmond, especially the 
 city of the past, as had been the time from 4 130 p. m. 
 until nightfall of Thursday 25th. 
 
 The same coachman, with his opened hack top, was 
 at the hotel door pursuant to orders at 9 a. m. promptly, 
 and we stepped in and were driven away west through 
 the newer portions of the city, containing many fine 
 residences, which have gone up in the last twenty-five 
 years. Considerable building seems to be going on 
 now in the quarter through which we were driven, 
 which quarter contains the equestrian statue of General 
 Lee. I like the postures and the likeness of that work 
 of art. The pose of horse and rider is most excellent, 
 and I am not apt to be charged with any undue enthusi- 
 asm when I say that the expression of the horse's face 
 is the finest I ever saw in bronze. At this moment, I 
 do not recall the name of the artist, but he was, or is, a 
 lover of the horse, as well as of his art. He has studied 
 the horse's face, in its finest types, as closely as he has 
 studied the faces of his human subjects. 
 
 We passed some magnificent residences and grounds, 
 after leaving this statue. Before we reached Holly- 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. T7 
 
 wood Cemetery, the driver took us into a small park 
 between the city and the cemetery, on high ground 
 overlooking the river and its valley, the city, Manches- 
 ter, the cemetery and a wide stretch of country in all 
 directions. It was like the view from Chimborazo 
 hill the evening before. As we entered the park the 
 ''colored gentleman" informed us,"Dis yer is gambler's 
 park." I said, "gambler's park?" "Yes, sah, 
 gambler's park." Thereupon, I mentally credited the 
 good citizens of Richmond with the gratification of a 
 new ambition or charity, or both, the establishment of 
 a place of outdoor recreation for the gambling frater- 
 nity. We had noticed that the cars on the railroads 
 carefully separated between the white and the colored 
 traveling population, and we found ourselves dis- 
 tinctively classified, on the trains, by a placard fastened 
 at the front end inside the car containing the one word 
 "White." On a door leading to a compartment of 
 another car, early Thursday morning, we noted the 
 word "Colored." So, it seemed that, perhaps, the mu- 
 nicipality, known as the Capital of Virginia, following 
 the lead of the State and the earlier lead, suggested in 
 the figure of Holy Writ, had taken steps to send the 
 gamblers to the left to their own park, separate and 
 apart from the pious and the non-gambling portion of 
 the populace, who would appropriately go to the right. 
 Gamblers need rest and recreation as well as other 
 people and their lives and industry and usefulness and 
 other attainments are as much prolonged thereby as 
 
I 8 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 are those of other people. And so we passed out of 
 "gambler's park," but before noon I discovered that 
 all my theorizing was visionary — baseless — and like the 
 house built upon the sand, the truth sadly overturned 
 it. We had been through Gamble's Park. See what 
 the insertion or omission of an r will do in such a case. 
 
 From the park we went to Hollywood Cemetery — 
 Richmond's city of the dead; aye, more than that, as 
 we shall sec. 
 
 The cemetery lies, in the general direction, up the 
 river and westward from the city. The suburbs of 
 the latter are not far away and after another forty 
 years they will extend around the quieter city on the 
 east and north and west, but hardly in such force as 
 to disturb the repose of its inhabitants, or require the 
 removal of the dust of any of them. 
 
 One goes half way down a road toward a valley 
 which runs into the river. Here stands on the right of 
 the roadway and on your right as you enter the en- 
 closure the superintendent's house in which, of course, 
 is his office. As we went in, the carriage did not stop, 
 but followed down the cemetery road into the valley, 
 which runs through the grounds, I should say, from 
 the northwest to the southeast. The topography shows 
 a rolling, rather broken, surface, i. e., several smaller 
 valleys of greater or less length emptying into the 
 principal one, already mentioned. The ground, at 
 some points, rises rather abruptly from the threads of 
 the little streams, perhaps, at an angle of forty-five 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 19 
 
 degrees, and, per consequence, the graves are on quasi 
 terraces, one row above another, along the slopes. 
 
 We passed down and up through the central portion 
 of the cemetery going in a southwesterly direction and 
 toward the southwestern corner of the grounds. They 
 are beautifully shaded by the trees and vines, and the 
 richest, rarest rose bushes and flowers in full bloom, 
 and great profusion stand about many of the hillocks, 
 adding to the sweetness of the scene as well as of the 
 atmosphere, and suggesting the reflection that these 
 people care, with tenderest memories and cultivated 
 taste, for the homes of their dead. 
 
 Presentlv, we reached the highest plateau, in the 
 southwestern section, or quarter, of the great enclosure, 
 and our driver stopped his team. The trees and the 
 foliage were not so thick as they had been at most 
 points on the way after we left the entrance ; in other 
 words, there was an openness to the skies, which came 
 from the newer section and from the cleared lands to 
 the west, the boundary of the cemetery, in that direc- 
 tion, not being very far away. Ten feet from the 
 roadway, where the first stop was made, were the 
 graves of John Tyler, the tenth President of the United 
 States, and of his wife and daughter. He was born 
 at Greenway. Charles City County, Virginia, March 
 29, 1790, and died at Richmond, January 18, 1862. He 
 was elected Vice-President with General Harrison in 
 1840 and became President by the death of the latter, 
 April 4, 1 84 1. 
 
20 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 Over there, twenty-five or thirty feet northwest from 
 the grave of Tyler, are the graves of another, the fifth 
 President of the United States, and of his wife and 
 daughter — James Monroe. He was born in West- 
 moreland County, Virginia, April 28, 1758; was Presi- 
 dent from March 4, 1817, until March 4, 1825. He 
 died in New York, July 4. 183 1, and his remains were 
 removed to Richmond in the year 1858. Over his 
 grave is a small canopied tomb, say six or seven feet 
 in diameter and eight or ten feet high. 
 
 A little further on toward the west, a little more 
 out of the shadow of the trees and foliage and into 
 the light mentioned, but not many paces, and on a little 
 higher ground, the carriage stopped again. Here is a 
 name which once filled the world and which more than 
 half the Republic sang with contumely and scorn and 
 loathing. He was the recognized head and center of 
 a rebellion against the established government, which 
 for strength and danger has probably never in history 
 been equalled where rebellion failed : 
 
 " Jefferson Davis/' 
 
 He and his daughter Winnie, born during the war, 
 sleep near each other — the latter to the north some ten 
 to fifteen feet — on a slightly raised, circular lot, say 
 thirty feet in diameter, the circle guarded by a very 
 slight wire fence, perhaps, twenty inches in height. 
 The foot of the chieftain's grave is toward the east 
 and the grave itself is covered by a white marble slab, 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 21 
 
 lying" down near the general surface of the lot. At the 
 head of the grave is a large block of marble, about five 
 feet square and a foot thick, on which stands a full 
 figure of the man, but slightly larger than life, in 
 bronze, erected by his widow, whom we saw at Put-in- 
 Bay last year. The likeness is good. The dress is of 
 the period of the rebellion, a long, black, sack coat, 
 fastened in front by a single button just below the 
 waist, the sides flaring open above. The boots are 
 strictly military and outside of the pants. I was re- 
 minded by them of his military service, and I suppose 
 they were designed to commemorate it, especially dur- 
 ing the Mexican war in which he was a Mississippi 
 Colonel. He was born June 3, 1808, in Christian 
 County, Kentucky, and died at New Orleans, Decem- 
 ber 6, 1889. A large portion of his education was 
 received at the Transylvania University, Lexington, 
 Kentucky, and we saw his student room when in that 
 city in May, 1897. T have in my library no life of 
 Jefferson Davis, nor do I have his work, "The Rise and 
 Fall of the Confederate Government." 
 
 The statue at his grave, faces Richmond, looking 
 east down the James river — a direction in which he no 
 doubt cast anxious eyes and thoughts thousands of 
 times while he occupied the Confederate White House. 
 
 Not far from the Davis plat lies a grave which I had 
 not expected to find at Richmond. Its occupant, in his 
 day, was a man, a statesman, of keenest wit, and he 
 was often reckless of the wound, which it inflicted. 
 
22 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 He spent at least thirty of his sixty years in public 
 office, most of them in Congress — "John Randolph, 
 of Roanoke." He was born at Camsons, Chesterfield 
 County, Virginia, August 10, 1773, and died at Phila- 
 delphia, June 24, 1833. 
 
 The next grave we saw as we drove by— I mean of 
 a celebrity — was that of Commodore Maury of the 
 Confederate Navy, Matthew Fontaine Maury was 
 born in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, January 14, 
 1S06; died at Lexington, Virginia, February 1, 1873. 
 I remember reading, in i860, his Physical Geography 
 of the Sea, with absorbing interest. It was volun- 
 tarily loaned to me by Rev. A. L. P , of R , 
 
 Ohio, who was afterward the first chaplain of our 
 regiment. 
 
 Next, we saw the grave of General J. E. B. Stewart, 
 the distinguished cavalry leader of the South, called 
 in short phrase "Jeb" Stewart. 
 
 I should have said that before we left the Davis lot 
 I walked around it and as I stood by the carriage, 
 before stepping in, I saw a lady slyly pluck a flower 
 from one of the bushes on the lot. What she did with 
 the rose I do not know. Perhaps she was a Confed- 
 erate lady and again, perhaps she was not. 
 
 Other tenants of the narrow houses are all about 
 these whose names in life were widely known, but time 
 will not permit separate notes of them. 
 
 The next drive brought us to the northern portion 
 of the cemetery, the burial grounds of Confederate 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 23 
 
 soldiers. Tt is the head of the principal valley, men- 
 tioned above, a rolling, broken piece of land. We 
 drove through all its driveways. The shade trees 
 here are not so plentiful. The first thing that struck 
 me with reference to it was the absence of hillocks, or 
 mounds, the absolutely even, flat character of the sur- 
 face and the scarcity — oh ! so scarce — of any sort of 
 markers. Tt is merely a guess, but, to illustrate, I'll 
 say there is not a marker for one of every hundred 
 soldiers buried there. There are no civilian graves, or 
 monuments, or markers, among them. It seemed to 
 me that one melancholy word might appropriately arch 
 the whole silent, courageous, encampment — "Un- 
 known." At or near the southwestern corner of this 
 great soldier section, where we entered it, I noticed a 
 small Confederate flag stuck near the ground beside 
 what seemed to be an eight-inch sewer pipe projecting 
 above the surface ten or twelve inches, on top of which 
 was laid a little tablet of white marble, about one foot 
 square and two inches thick, on the edges of which 
 the lapidary had engraved some words and on the 
 upper side of which were others. It marked a grave, 
 but in which' direction from the marker the body lay 
 one could not discern from the face of the ground — 
 possibly the feet were east from the flag. 
 
24 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 I copied all the inscriptions from the stone. 
 The words on the top were these : 
 
 "H. L. Wyatt, 
 
 Bethel, 
 June 10, 1861." 
 
 ( )n the edges, these were the words, north, ''The 
 First Soldier" ; west, "Confederate" ; south, "Killed in 
 Rattle"; east. "Co. A, 1 N. C. Vol." Doubtless the 
 record is true. To me, the fact was one of keen inter- 
 est. The queries rose in my mind, "Is the first Fed- 
 eral Soldier, killed in that war, known ? and, is his 
 grave properly marked?" At this moment, I do not 
 recall any such fact. 
 
 Up by a sort of side entrance, toward the northeast 
 corner of the cemetery, close by the fence, is a monu- 
 ment to General George E. Pickett and the dead gath- 
 ered there from his Gettysburg charge. His grave is 
 marked, but the monument, a canopied, tomb-like 
 structure, did not impress me as up to the demands of 
 the man and his sleeping comrades. No monument, 
 however, can add to, or detract from, the fame of his 
 work in that grand climacteric of July 3, 1863, the 
 charge at Gettysburg. The charge or charges and 
 their repulses will live as long as Marathon or Water- 
 loo. He was born at Richmond, January 25, 1825, 
 and died at Norfolk, July 30, 1875. He and General 
 Emerson Opdycke of Battle of Franklin fame, always 
 reminded me of each other. In dash and courage and 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 25 
 
 in skill and prudence, on the field, they were much 
 alike. 
 
 A monument of undressed granite blocks from the 
 James River quarries towers in the form of a pyramid 
 ninety-five feet high in the midst of these thousands 
 of Confederate dead. There was not a particle of 
 mortar or cement of any kind used in its construction. 
 It is massive and graceful, a commemorative pile, de- 
 signed to meet and supply the great lack of markers 
 and monuments to the Army of Confederate soldiers 
 who, otherwise undistinguished, sleep on all its sides 
 within the cemetery grounds. 
 
 Here we finished our inspection and view of the 
 famous cemetery. There was no time to copy from 
 the monuments, or markers, except that "first to fall in 
 rebellion's cause." I could not pass his grave without 
 leaving the carriage and going to it and standing by it 
 and taking the record thereon. It was more than I 
 did at the grave of Jefferson Davis, though, as re- 
 corded, I walked around the latter. 
 
 H. L. Wyatt was a proto-martyr and I thought of 
 the inscription on the marker to the unknown occu- 
 pant of the lone grave in Allatoona Pass : 
 
 "He died for the cause 
 He thought was right." 
 
 Taking the western side of the valley back to the 
 point where we crossed it soon after entering the 
 grounds, we returned to the house of the superintend- 
 
26 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 ent, where I ordered the driver to stop while I went 
 into the office. 
 
 The assistant superintendent politely answered my 
 questions. 
 
 "How many acres are in your cemetery?" "One 
 hundred." 
 
 "How many bodies, excluding soldiers, are buried in 
 it?" 
 
 "Nineteen thousand." "How many Confederate 
 soldiers?" Fifteen thousand." "Are there any Fed- 
 eral soldiers buried in it?" "Not one." It was the 
 answer I expected. In this place, sentiments are 
 supreme and no Federal soldier, or opponent of treason 
 and rebellion, may criticise the exclusion, or demand 
 the right to intrude. I remember always that no Con- 
 federate soldier can sleep in a National cemetery. The 
 sentiments are identical in spirit. The superintendent 
 was sitting on his high stool, at his long high desk, 
 talking by telephone to some one in the city, who was 
 announcing to him the death of some well known citi- 
 zen, which had just then occurred. I was through 
 with my inquiries, had thanked the assistant for his 
 answers and was starting out when the superintendent 
 hung up the receiver and showed an inclination to talk. 
 I soon found that he had been in Ohio and knew some- 
 thing of the State ; that he was born at Richmond 
 about the close of the war — rather I should say about 
 the beginning, for he said he had been "in the hands 
 of the Yankees at the wind up" and so on. After a 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 2j 
 
 little agreeable general conversation, I took my leave 
 and entered the carriage in waiting. Before we drove 
 out of the gate he came through his office door and I 
 introduced him to my traveling companions when he 
 handed me his card. 
 
 And so we came away from famous Hollywood 
 Cemetery abundantly repaid for the time and effort be- 
 stowed. My notions about its location were inaccurate. 
 I supposed from descriptions that it was east of the 
 city — down the river — but the errors are all corrected 
 now and time will hardly ever efface the day's im- 
 pressions. 
 
 The Confederate Cemetery — Oakwood — is east or 
 northeast of the city, not far from Chimborazo Park. 
 Sixteen thousand Confederate soldiers are buried in 
 Oakwood. The largest Confederate hospital, during 
 the war, was in Chimborazo Park. 
 
 Lunch and bills paid and packing done, but little was 
 left us save to wait until 3 130 p. m. and go out to Old 
 Point. 
 
 From our windows I made the criticism that the 
 neck of Washington's horse had, or has, a sharper 
 bend in it at the bending point than the nature of the 
 horse's neck will warrant. A big snake might bend 
 his body so, but the bone in the horse's neck is not 
 ordinarily "built that way." 
 
 The upper portions of the monument, those which 
 bear and shed the snows and rains are kept dark green 
 in color bv the chemical action of the elements on the 
 
28 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 bronze, but the color so produced does not give one an 
 unpleasant impression. In other words, it shades off 
 into harmony with the rest of the coloring from the 
 exposure and the action, in different degrees, of the 
 same elements. 
 
 After lunch I went into the square to settle, if I 
 could, the question of the time when the roadway was 
 opened which makes an island of the Washington 
 Monument. I found that it had been open ever since 
 the monument was erected in 1855. I found, further, 
 that the building of the capitol was begun in or about 
 1799. The two new wings, now in process of con- 
 struction, will make it when remodeled a splendid 
 structure. 
 
 I omitted mention of Memorial or Monumental 
 Church on the way between the Confederate White 
 House and St. John's, where stood the theatre which 
 was burned in 181 1 when nearly 500 people, among 
 them the Governor of the State, lost their lives. 
 
 What I am about to record naturally reminds me of 
 the thought of the Scripture : "Your young men shall 
 see visions and your old men shall dream dreams," 
 
 And of Campbell's thought of the time — 
 
 "While Memory watches o'er the sad review 
 Of joys that faded like the morning dew." 
 
 My promise is now due to record the omitted inci- 
 dent of the evening of our arrival in Richmond. It 
 had been a hot, exhausting and tiresome day. When 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 20, 
 
 night fell, I sat down in a rocker to gaze out on the 
 capitol square and on the lights of the central and 
 eastern portions of the city, visible from the fifth story 
 of the tall hotel, and to dream, in my weary way, of 
 many things — among them, of the camps and battles 
 and long marches which brought us — the survivors — 
 to the top of Manchester hills and down Manchester 
 streets and across the James River, over Belle Isle, in 
 sight of Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, into Rich- 
 mond, past the Confederate Capitol, around that very 
 square, embracing the Washington Monument, past 
 Lee's house and out of the city, through the surround- 
 ing fortifications, defensive and offensive — now oblit- 
 erated or somewhat overgrown — and away to the 
 north, on that nth day of May, 1865. Yea, a thou- 
 sand things added to my "tire" and my dreams. 
 
 I had slept ; wife and children, tired too, had gone to 
 rest. It must have been ten o'clock or later. The 
 noises in the streets of the old southern city had lapsed 
 into silence, nearly altogether. A part of the seeming 
 silence was doubtless due to the infolding of all the 
 senses, the resting of weary, healthy, body and facul- 
 ties, sana mens in sano corpore, the perfect repose that 
 "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," gives. 
 
 Away off toward the river sounded a faint bugle 
 note. It recalled the more than one thousand nights 
 when I lay down and rose again to know and practice 
 war, and war only, when the bugle was monitor at 
 both rising and retiring, at reveille and tattoo, as well 
 
30 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 as on the drill field and the firing line. It touched 
 and stirred the sense and memory of war only — the 
 camp and field and march and battle. Half dreaming, 
 not half awake, oblivious of surroundings and condi- 
 tions and then present time, I seemed still to be some- 
 where in the midst of the civil war. There had been 
 the march from the mountains to the sea and then had 
 come the march from the sea to the mountains, again. 
 A brilliant judge, once describing a contemporary, said 
 he was "a dim-minded man." Without the character- 
 istic, I hope, the "dim-minded man's" condition had 
 somehow, in sleep, come to me and the bugle note on 
 the night air had suggested war in the room Mistead of 
 piping peace. 
 
 The trumpeter was blowing "lights out." Slowly, 
 he seemed to move into the capitol square from some 
 point south and between it and the river. As he en- 
 tered the capitol grounds, on the south side, the volume 
 of sound from his bugle increased. There were a 
 strength and a deliberation and a sweetness in the long- 
 drawn, perfect tones, which, arousing from my sleep, 
 enthralled me. In the waking, I glided gently from 
 the dream of war to the reality of peace and the in- 
 spiration of those bugle strains. There is no enthu- 
 siasm. I am trying to transfer to paper a faint sketch 
 of an actuality. From that first faint note the air was 
 incessantly stirred and filled with the tones of the in- 
 strument, coming nearer and nearer, but without a step 
 in haste and without a single hurried note. What the 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 31 
 
 actual movement or direction of the bugler was, I can- 
 not say, but the sound seemed to indicate that he was 
 moving in a slow walk from the southeast toward the 
 northwest corner of the capitol grounds, from the 
 vicinity of the old bell tower to the Washington Monu- 
 ment. This was bringing him directly toward my 
 position. It seemed to me, as he reached the center 
 of the square, that all Richmond, if listening, could 
 hear the voice of that trumpet, so clear, so strong, so 
 penetrating, and so magnificent, in their sweep, were 
 the strains set afloat by the operator, on the still night 
 air. He was certainly then enjoying a monopoly of 
 sound in all central Richmond. 
 
 Swelling, swelling, progressing, progressing, 
 "Lights out" and its variations, never had such illus- 
 trations within my hearing. I wish it were possible 
 to transfer such sounds to paper and then reproduce 
 them once every twenty-four hours. I should for ten 
 or fifteen minutes, every night left me on earth, enjoy 
 such a feast as I conceive may be a part of the joy of 
 angels. The final bars were blown near the Wash- 
 ington Monument. They filled a magnificent space, 
 were re-echoed from the skies and spread away to the 
 hills beyond the James and all about the ancient capital. 
 Then came silence. For a long time I sat in the dark 
 reading and interpreting that strangely fascinating 
 night music, as it had impressed my heart and brain. 
 Its actual history, origin, purpose, author, I knew, and 
 still know, not. 
 
32 RICHMOND REVISITED. 
 
 As it died away, a vague and illusive memory came 
 to me that I had heard of a custom to close the day in 
 that way ever since the end of the Civil War and it 
 commemorated many things, with offense toward none 
 of the dead or living. 
 
 It was the requiem of the Lost Cause, of the 16,000 
 Confederate soldiers whose graves are in Oakwood, 
 of the 15,000 Confederate soldiers sleeping in Holly- 
 wood, on the west, and of the 6542 Federal soldiers 
 resting in the National Cemetery about the same dis- 
 tance east of the Old Dominion's Capital City ; aye, 
 broader still, of the great armies of Confederate and 
 Federal soldiers, who people the vast cemeteries of 
 the land from the sea shore to the feet of the Rockies 
 as the result of the fratricidal struggle of the preceding 
 generation. The mournful cadences of that weird 
 music roused such thoughts as these as they broke on 
 the ear. "They do not descend to a wail ; they are not 
 the sounds of hope utterly abandoned ; they are not the 
 suggestions of hate ; nay, none of these, nor anything 
 like them." It was a mournful, a glorious apotheosis 
 in the strains of unsurpassed martial music. All the 
 past, with its hopes and struggles ; its promises and its 
 disappointments; its sunshine and its clouds ; its vi- 
 tories and its defeats ; its wasted lives and blood and 
 treasures ; its changes and its final conditions, bound 
 fast in fate ; its achievements and its failures, welled 
 up and swelled out in the swaying, throbbing, tones 
 and echoes, which appealed to sentiment and memory 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 33 
 
 only, no longer, nor ever again, to passion or violence. 
 
 It was as one mourning- for a broken and wasted life, 
 where the prodigal had returned, not in youth still, but 
 at its end; not to say, "I have sinned against heaven 
 and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called 
 thy son," but with the proud claim of a conscience 
 void of offense toward all men, though wrecked and 
 desolate amid the ruin which he himself had somehow 
 wrought. 
 
 At 4 p. m. we left Richmond for the Point. It is a 
 two hours' run through an apparently sparsely settled, 
 flat country, overgrown largely with bushes, not trees, 
 here and there, as you glide by, giving you the im- 
 pression that you are traveling through the northern 
 end of the lower peninsula of Michigan. From the 
 mountains to Richmond one sometimes has the same 
 impression, but the land there is more rolling, actually 
 seems higher above sea level, and, while not densely 
 populated, it is more thickly settled than is the land 
 between Richmond and the Point. The historic in- 
 terest of the region is intense. It was here that the 
 first English settlements on the western continent were 
 made; it is here that our history begins — 1607, thirteen 
 years before the Mayflower sighted the shores of New 
 England. One does not much wonder that in these 
 low lands, shaded and dampened by the original for- 
 ests, the first comers died off like delicate constitu- 
 tioned sheep amid the winter storms. It was a new 
 world, but they were sitting on its very edge with their 
 
34 RICHMOND REVISTTER 
 
 feet in the sea and dying from the colds and exposure 
 and fevers and consumption which filled the air. They 
 had no knowledge of the great mountains and plains, 
 of the regions of health and long life which lay in the 
 stretches of 3000 miles behind them or before them as 
 one may choose ; but T am not to rewrite the history 
 of Jamestown, John Smith, Powhatan, Pocahontas, or 
 Virginia. 
 
 After the days on the seashore and about Fortress 
 Monroe, at 9 140 a. m. we were on board and the long 
 home run began. There is a sense of relief as the 
 miles are left behind after one has made the start. I 
 always experience it, whether the start be made on a 
 train like the F. F. V. Limited, or on a long-coupled 
 lumber wagon in the wilderness of the far northwest, 
 fifteen or fifty miles from a railroad station, or on foot 
 in the snow and rain, that distance away. "Home- 
 ward bound." The words and the fact have always 
 been welcome. 
 
 We ran into the Richmond Station at noon precisely 
 and ran out at 2 p. m. 
 
 During the delay of the train, we took carriage and 
 drove to Chimborazo Park to take a view of the grove 
 of trees, which is supposed to mark the site of the 
 rescue of Captain John Smith. The suburb — it is not 
 improved — is called Powhatan, and there appears no 
 reason, in fact, or history, or tradition, why it may 
 not have been the scene of the famous rescue. 
 
 M77-251 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 35 
 
 From the same position, practically, we had a view 
 of the National Cemetery. T asked our driver — a new 
 one — how many soldiers were huried there ; with" much 
 promptness, he answered 6542. When I asked the 
 size of the cemetery, all of which we could not see from 
 the park, he staggered me by answering - , with equal 
 promptness, "one acre." T repeated, "one acre?" and 
 he replied, "Yes, one acre." Then T figured mentally. 
 "There are 160 square rods in an acre; 160 will go 
 into 6542, in round numbers, forty times. This, it 
 seemed to me, would require each square rod, on the 
 average, to contain forty bodies. In each square rod 
 are 256 square feet. Each body, at the least, would 
 require six feet by two feet — 12 feet of space and 40 
 times 12 would make 480 square feet. So that, the 
 driver was mistaken and the cemetery contains. more 
 than one acre, or the bodies are uncomfortably 
 crowded. T do not now know what is the real solution 
 of the mathematical problem, which the Jehu's answer 
 left with me. 
 
 Mrs. H. asked him the name of the present Governor 
 of Virginia. He said it was Montague. Then he 
 drove us through the poorest part of the city we had 
 yet seen, the northeastern suburb, going around the 
 head of the valley which puts up into the park from 
 the river, in sight of the Davis home, past the Me- 
 morial Church, past what he called "Mrs. Vant Lew's" 
 old residence, now the Virginia Club, past Old St. 
 John's Church and graveyard — on three sides of it — 
 
 
36 RICHMOND REVTSTTED. 
 
 past Washington's Headquarters and down to Castle 
 Thunder, which Mrs. K. particularly desired to see 
 again. Tt is, as I think I said above, the twin of Libby, 
 which was removed to Chicago. When one has seen 
 either, he or she knows what the other looks like. 
 
 We passed again the site of Libby and then returned 
 to the station to say goodby to Richmond, presently. 
 
 As the train moved out, we were at the foot of the 
 bluff on which the Davis house stands and traveled in 
 sight of it for two or three miles. Tt was the last of 
 the notable things of Richmond to disappear from our 
 view. 
 
 When we marched through the country in May. 
 1865, forts and intrenchments frowned on all hands. 
 
 Going north, we passed first the heavy works of the 
 Confederates and then, presently, those of the Federals 
 confronting them. They were the fresh red and yel- 
 low clay of the country and traceable, right and left, 
 as far as the eye could reach. Now, they are so far 
 leveled or overgrown, that, from the car, my attention 
 was nowhere challenged to a single mark or line of 
 war times as we shot by at the rate of 45 miles per 
 hour. The ride up to Clifton Forge, the point of 
 change in the mountains between eastern and central 
 times, was much cooler and more comfortable than the 
 one going down the other day. 
 

 
 
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