Nevertheless, the town bore no evidence of thrift.  It looked as though it were sleepy and indolent in the best of times, having oysters for its chief merchandise.  The streets were paved, but the pavements were of large irregular stones, and unevenly laid.  Few houses were new, and, excepting St. John’s Church, the public edifices were mean.  All these have been swept away by the recent conflagration, a waste of property indefensible on any military principles.  The buildings might have furnished winter-quarters for our troops, but in that climate they were not necessary for that purpose, perhaps not desirable, or, if required, could be easily replaced by temporary habitations constructed of lumber imported from the North by sea.  But the Rebel chiefs had thrown themselves into heroic attitudes, and while playing the part of incendiaries, they fancied their action to be as sublime as that of the Russians at Moscow.  With such a precedent of Vandalism, no ravages of our own troops can hereafter be complained of.

The prevailing exodus, leaving less than a dozen white men behind, testifies the political feelings of the people.  Only two votes were thrown against the ordinance of Secession.  Whatever of Union sentiment existed there had been swept away by such demagogues as Mallory, Cary, Magruder, Shiels, and Hope.  Hastily as they left, they removed in most cases all their furniture, leaving only the old Virginia sideboard, too heavy to be taken away.  In a few exceptional cases, from the absence of the owner or other cause, the house was still furnished; but generally nothing but old letters, torn books, newspapers, cast-off clothing, strewed the floors.  Rarely have I enjoyed the hours more than when roaming from cellar to garret these tenantless houses.  A deserted dwelling!  How the imagination is fascinated by what may have there transpired of human joy or sorrow,—­the solitary struggles of the soul for better things, the dawn and the fruition of love, the separations and reunions of families, the hearth-stone consecrated by affection and prayer, the bridal throng, the birth of new lives, the farewells to the world, the funeral train.

But more interesting and instructive were the features of slave-life which here opened to us.  The negroes who remained, of whom there may have been three hundred of all ages, lived in small wooden shanties, generally in the rear of the master’s house, rarely having more than one room on the lower floor, and that containing an open fireplace where the cooking for the master’s family was done, tables, chairs, dishes, and the miscellaneous utensils of household life.  The masters had taken with them, generally, their waiting-maids and house-servants, and had desired to carry all their slaves with them.  But in the hasty preparations,—­particularly where the slaves were living away from their master’s close, or had a family,—­it was difficult to remove them against their will, as they could skulk