The work thus begun, continued,—­gathering in force and fury as the day wore on.  Police stations, enrolling-offices, rooms or buildings used in any way by government authority, or obnoxious as representing the dignity of law, were gutted, destroyed, then left to the mercy of the flames.  Newspaper offices, whose issues had been a fire in the rear of the nation’s armies by extenuating and defending treason, and through violent and incendiary appeals stirring up “lewd fellows of the baser sort” to this very carnival of ruin and blood, were cheered as the crowd went by.  Those that had been faithful to loyalty and law were hooted, stoned, and even stormed by the army of miscreants who were only driven off by the gallant and determined charge of the police, and in one place by the equally gallant, and certainly unique defence, which came from turning the boiling water from the engines upon the howling wretches, who, unprepared for any such warm reception as this, beat a precipitate and general retreat.  Before night fell it was no longer one vast crowd collected in a single section, but great numbers of gatherings, scattered over the whole length and breadth of the city,—­some of them engaged in actual work of demolition and ruin; others with clubs and weapons in their hands, prowling round apparently with no definite atrocity to perpetrate, but ready for any iniquity that might offer,—­and, by way of pastime, chasing every stray police officer, or solitary soldier, or inoffensive negro, who crossed the line of their vision; these three objects—­the badge of a defender of the law,—­the uniform of the Union army,—­the skin of a helpless and outraged race—­acted upon these madmen as water acts upon a rabid dog.

Late in the afternoon a crowd which could have numbered not less than ten thousand, the majority of whom were ragged, frowzy, drunken women, gathered about the Orphan Asylum for Colored Children,—­a large and beautiful building, and one of the most admirable and noble charities of the city.  When it became evident, from the menacing cries and groans of the multitude, that danger, if not destruction, was meditated to the harmless and inoffensive inmates, a flag of truce appeared, and an appeal was made in their behalf, by the principal, to every sentiment of humanity which these beings might possess,—­a vain appeal!  Whatever human feeling had ever, if ever, filled these souls was utterly drowned and washed away in the tide of rapine and blood in which they had been steeping themselves.  The few officers who stood guard over the doors, and manfully faced these demoniac legions, were beaten down and flung to one side, helpless and stunned whilst the vast crowd rushed in.  All the articles upon which they could seize—­beds, bedding, carpets, furniture,—­the very garments of the fleeing inmates, some of these torn from their persons as they sped by—­were carried into the streets, and hurried off by the women and children who stood ready to receive the goods which their husbands,