or six hundred, were from all over the South and ranged in age from
about sixteen years to about twenty-four or five. I entered the
Institute shortly before the evacuation of Richmond and enjoyed the
distinction, as I have stated, of being the youngest cadet in the corps.
When the cadets first came to Richmond, they marched with singularly
soldier-like precision and carriage out Grace street to the Fair grounds
where they were for a time quartered. The uniforms of the boys as also
their food began to partake of the Confederate soldier variety and it
was pathetic to see some of these boys marching in ranks through
Richmond to their quarters with pants torn or worn out at the bottom and
variegated in outfit, some with cadet jackets and plain pants, others
with cadet pants and plain jackets. The Richmond Alms House was assigned
to the cadets for their quarters. Life there would have been ordinarily
recognized as singularly trying; to the young men in the corps it was a
perpetual joy, alloyed alone by the obligation to attend lectures. The
rooms that were a delight to them were simply unmentionable. In my room
about twelve feet wide and twenty-four feet long were sixteen cadets who
slept and studied there. In the day time the mattresses were piled each
on top of the other in a single corner of the room—at night time they
were arranged side by side with head against the wall. One long table
occupied the center of the room. It was supposed to be a study table and
was occupied at night by a favored one to sleep upon. In the day time it
was never occupied except by the boys lounging upon it in lieu of
chairs, smoking their pipes and gossiping. Pure atmosphere day or night
in that room was not needed by those young men with their wonderful
vitality. In day time the air was redolent with tobacco smoke from their
pipes. At night time the door was invariably kept closed by any who were
up playing cards or gossiping after the retiring hour to shut out from
view the officer of the guard, who whenever he wished to investigate for
such breaches of discipline always discreetly and considerately knocked
before entering, opening the door to find everything in perfect order.
Each room had a petty officer, usually a corporal, a senior who was
supposed to be responsible for the good order and cleanliness of the
room. One of the duties of this senior was to initiate by “bucking” any
new cadet introduced into his room. This “bucking”, peculiar to the
Institute, consisted in taking the new comer’s right hand, carrying it
behind his back, twisting it around until he was compelled thereby to
bend over when he would be struck by the senior with a bayonet scabbard
on his posterior once for each letter in his name and in the event he
was without a middle name he was given the right to select one and upon
failure to do so was given the name Constantinople for its many letters.
Thereupon he was dubbed a “rat”, which name he bore for one year. He was
liable to have trouble for the whole first year and might have to take
another bucking or stand up to a fight, which usually was brought about
in a formal way and was a great affair. The corporal of our room was a
mild mannered gentlemanly fellow named Bayard of Georgia, whose father
was, I believe, in the Confederate Congress from that State. After
bucking me and permitting me to choose Asa for my middle name he dubbed
me “mouse” and stated to me that if any one attempted to give me any
trouble to let him know. No trouble was there though for me, it was one
constant stretch of delightful experiences. The association with older
boys and men who treated me not simply as an equal but from my youth and
boyishness showed me every favor rendered my life one of joyous ease. I
was informed by the cadet whose name immediately preceded mine in roll
call of my company that any time I wanted to get off to let him know and
he would answer twice, once for himself, once for me. I was introduced
by a friendly cadet to the apothecary’s assistant who turned an honest
dollar in selling surreptitiously to the boys ginger cakes and pies at a
thousand per cent profit. I was recommended to old “Judge”, the negro
head cook and steward, who, black as coal, was with the boys the most
popular person in the corps, but for his favors which usually comprised
an extra allowance of bread, expected a suitable remembrance. A room I
have here described could furnish no more than living quarters for the
number occupying it, and how any studying could be done at night by two
dull tallow candles, the only lights was inexplicable. Toilets were
performed in a general wash room, adjoining a larger room where all
trunks were kept and these two rooms were on the same stoop or porch and
a little apart from the living rooms that all adjoined. If meagre fare
contributed to good health, the boys were entitled to the extraordinary
health they possessed with such surroundings. A typical breakfast was
“growley”, bread and Confederate coffee. Sometimes sorghum molasses took
the place of “growley.” This latter dish was quite watery, being a hash
of beef, potatoes and onions. A typical dinner was boiled Irish
potatoes, boiled corned beef and bread. Meals were served in the large
dining room in the basement at plain pine tables with no covering, each
table seating about one dozen. At the head of the table stood the large
dish of growley or the corn-beef and at each cadet’s plate was his half
loaf of bread. It required practice and expertness to slide one’s tin
plate over the table, to the “growley” dish for a helping and some art
to secure at long distance the favorable disposition of the cadet
sitting at the head to whom fell the delightful emolument of
apportioning the “growley.” The half loaf of bread was where old “Judge”
came in, for you always felt as if you wanted more. Each cadet was
furnished his own two pronged fork and a good large table knife, both of
the rough bone handled variety, colored a dark brown. This fare with
undue discipline would have been unbearable but with the free and
independent life led there it was only a pleasing passing incident in
the daily routine of cadet life constantly filled with ever recurring
incidents to surprise, interest and exhilarate and no grumbling ever
took place, only high spirits and the fullest animal enjoyment in the
flush of health.
A bell rang for classes or lectures and the class rooms were a wonder.
The classes were so large that many would have to stand up grouped
together, usually near the door. Before the lecture was finished the
groups would be greatly thinned out, for from time to time while the
professor was absorbed in his work or inspecting the black boards the
door would softly open and out would slip some member of the group who
would softly close the door and walk past the windows of the class room
as naturally as if he were on a mission, the only evidence of
irregularity being the exceedingly expert quick way with which he
vanished through the door. Another result of the large classes was the
effort to test the students by requiring several to recite at once, as
one at a time would never have reached around. This was supposed to be
accomplished by means of the blackboard, at each of the five or six
boards was stationed one cadet and the same test was furnished to all at
once. Out of the entire number at work usually at least one knew his
task well. The others made a show of great industry and with much waste
of chalk and many changes and corrections and with a sharp eye on his
neighbor’s work he managed to construct a passable performance. The last
exhibit I saw in the geography class was a curiously drawn map in chalk
outlining South America. It was not difficult to identify the copies of
various grades and conditions, nor the original from which made. I
suppose the professor was charitable in not holding his students to a
too strict accountability. I wonder indeed how they could do any
studying with such conditions or surroundings, instead of showing the
general faithfulness that they did to their work.
As I have stated a fight was a very formal affair; while usually
originating in quite an unmentionable way it was arranged to take place
with a full regard to the proprieties. One of the sixteen men in my room
was a jew named Lovenstein from Richmond. He was a new cadet like myself
and was therefore liable to have trouble. He had declined to submit to
some indignity required of him by an older cadet and he was thereupon
challenged to fight. This latter he had no way of escaping. It was
passed around during the day that there was to be a fight in so and so’s
room that night, I got there in company with the men from our room about
half after eight o’clock, the hour these affairs usually occurred. The
room was packed to suffocation, standing around an improvised ring. The
air was filled with tobacco smoke but there was absolutely no talking or
noise. In the ring in the center of the room the two fighters were
facing each other. My sympathies were with the jew because he came from
our room. A jew in the South or in Richmond who comported himself as a
gentleman was received as such, the commercialism that attached to the
race elsewhere did not at that date affect his status as a gentleman in
the South. Lovenstein stood up manfully to his task, with the creditable
result that secured for him the regard of the other inmates of our room
and it soon became understood that he was to be protected thereafter and
that no further trouble was to be put up for him.
The gala performance of the day was at dress parade. This occurred at
five in the afternoon. The large plaza fronting the full width of the
Alms House furnished a fine parade ground. Colonel Shipp, a portly,
dignified impressive man who at the time of my present writing is still
at the Institution now as Superintendent was then the Commandant, his
adjutant was a little man named Woodbridge and these two with the well
drilled corps as a whole furnished the three striking incidents of the
parade. The awkward squads consisting of new cadets were put through
simple evolutions at the same hour off from the parade ground at each
end of the building. Visitors in large numbers assembled to watch each
drill of the corps. At the close, the cadets were at liberty to stroll
off in the neighborhood for an hour recreation, and that was liberally
availed of. Soldierly dignity was not invariably preserved in these
strolls. Pent up youthful vitality freed from restraint showed itself in
rough play and upon one occasion an older companion of mine in the
exuberance of his spirits lifted me to his shoulders and completed his
walk bearing me with him in this position until his return to the
restraining formalities of the Institute grounds. One’s introduction to
the Institute was in strict military discipline; the details of name,
age, residence and the taking of the oath of allegiance to the State and
to the Confederacy were followed by a written requisition for a blanket,
mattress, knife and fork, etc., and an assignment to a room and company.
Mine was B Company. A sedate and dignified looking cadet named Ross was
captain, a good, old fashioned, friendly fellow named Royston was
orderly sergeant. My introduction to the corporal of my room was through
an army officer, Captain Shriver, who had recently graduated and who
accompanied me and my father on my entrance into the Institute.
General Smith, the Superintendent, was only seen by the cadets in his
private office at the far end of the building. The only visit I made to
him was quite an event in my life. Usually visits to the Superintendent
were quite serious affairs, furnishing checks to exuberant spirits,
often grave in consequences. Therefore a notification that your presence
was desired by the Superintendent was calculated to set the heart going
more rapidly and to stir the memory for some breach that must have been
discovered. The summons to me one day just as I was about to attend my
French lecture was as unattractive as attending the lecture. But when I
reached the Superintendent’s room I found there three Confederate
soldiers constituents of my father’s and friends of my family who had
come out to see me and had secured permission for me to accompany them
back to Richmond to spend the day. An event of the day was the taking of
a photograph in a group, this with a good supply of peanuts and a visit
to the theatre furnished quite a full day for us four, three seedy and
friendly Confederate soldiers and a youthful cadet just fourteen years
old. Their request to Genl. Smith to allow me to accompany them on their
lark had evidently appeared so unique that I was struck with the degree
of pleasure it seemed to afford him and my soldier friends.
The meagre fare made me yearn greatly to participate of the food that I
knew was being enjoyed at my home and I was not slow in availing myself
of any temporary leave I could obtain. One of these occasions took place
just shortly before the evacuation of Richmond and upon my return to the
Institute I was greeted by an almost empty building. I found the Corps
had been called out the night before to go to the front, leaving me as a
younger cadet with a number of others as a detail to guard the
Institute. For the short time we were in charge, there was of course no
lectures and little discipline, each one could go and come as he chose,
with the result that my visits to my home board were more interesting
and in my saunters along the streets I began to notice on the Saturday
prior to the evacuation premonitions of coming trouble. Great activity
was suddenly manifested through the various Confederate Government
departments. The Cadets at the Institute were extended permission to
remove their trunks. This was availed of on Saturday and also on Sunday
until the Institute was practically abandoned by every one there, but
was filled with the furniture and the trunks of all the absent cadets,
except of those few who had friends to take charge of them. Besides my
own trunk I was able to care for that of another room mate and sent it
to him by express to his home some weeks later.
On Sunday morning the 2d of April, 1865, it was apparent to anyone that
the City was to be abandoned by the Confederate troops. Great piles of
official documents and papers of all sorts were brought out from the
departments, piled up in the centre of the streets in separate piles at
short distances apart and then set on fire to be destroyed, some few
burned entirely, others only smouldered and others again failed to burn
at all. The result seemed to depend on the quality of the paper and the
density of the bundles. From one pile I took out a roll of Confederate
bonds with all coupons attached and from another pile a bundle of
official papers of various sorts. On Monday morning the 3d of April, I
saw going up Marshall street about daylight two Confederate cavalrymen
on foot who were the very last of the Confederate soldiers to leave
Richmond. On the same morning about eleven o’clock I saw the first Union
soldier to enter Richmond. He was also a cavalryman, riding up Broad
street and was near Tenth street when I saw him and was surrounded and
followed by a howling, frantic mob of about five hundred negro boys,
there being no other person except myself that I could see on the street
in the vicinity. Between these two periods, the going of the last
Confederates and the coming of the first Union soldier, stirring scenes
were being elsewhere enacted. I had first gone out to the Institute to
see how matters stood there and I found it was in possession of a horde
of men, women and children from all the neighborhood around, who had
broken open the building and were carrying away everything movable,
furniture, cadets’ trunks, books, guns and swords. Indeed, their
vandalism spared nothing. I went to my room and was able to secure my
blankets and my knife and fork and my books. It was intensely
distressing to observe the property of the cadets who were off in the
discharge of their duty, boldly appropriated and carried off before my
eyes by these multitudinous freebooters who preyed upon it as if it was
so much public spoils free to all who chose to help themselves. I
tarried there a very short while, carrying away with me what I had been
able to save of my own to my home. In leaving I noticed that the brick
arsenal across the road from the Institute had been, during the night,
blown up with such force that the fresh dirt in two graves alongside had
been blown out. They were the graves of two negroes who shortly before
had been hung on the hill to the east of the Institute, having been
found guilty of burglarously entering the cellar of the Rev. Dr. Moses
D. Hoge, the Presbyterian minister in Richmond, out of which they had
stolen a couple of hams. After reaching my home, I went down to the
Spotswood Hotel at the corner of 8th and Main streets just on the edge
of where the fire was raging. Why the Confederate troops had set fire,
as was reported of them in their evacuation of Richmond, I could not
understand. The fire was most disastrous in extent and in the character
of the buildings. It was in the business section; and the post office, a
granite building on Main street between 9th and 10th in which was
President Davis’ office was the only building left standing within a
wide radius. Scenes similar to what I had seen enacted at the Military
Institute were also taking place on the edge of the fire district.
Stores were being broken into and looted by women, men and boys. Barrels
of flour were being rolled away, bolts of cloth, boxes filled with all
sorts of commodities, groceries, tobacco, etc. In the midst of this
carnival of plunder a lot of women, a half dozen in number, had
concentrated their attention on a particular bolt of unbleached coarse
cotton cloth and in the contest for it had unwound it, each one pulling
her way. Others around were carrying away equally valuable goods ad
libitum, but these viragos ignored the ample opportunities elsewhere,
concentrating their energies on their fight for this particular cloth.
The temptation to myself and to another boy of my age with me was so
strong to incommode them in their senseless conduct that we took small
bags of tobacco from two barrels in front of a store under the Spotswood
Hotel and pelted them with the tobacco. While thus engaged the fire
gradually crept around in the rear of Main street towards Franklin and
had reached an arsenal on 8th street for making bomb shells. Soon the
shells began to burst and pieces flew in our direction, breaking windows
and scattering the crowd, including the fighting women, who got away
with no plunder from that immediate locality.
We had spent the summer of 1863 on the James river about twelve miles
above Richmond and a visit I subsequently paid there gave me an
opportunity of enjoying an experience that can never be repeated, namely
getting out of Richmond on a Confederate pass and witnessing some of the
incidents of an historical raid. My father had formed a personal
friendship with the family of General Winder, who was from Baltimore,
and as all passes had to be obtained from General Winder, who was in
command of Richmond and it was difficult to obtain access to him at his
office on Main street, I went to his house and got a pass from his son
who was his aide. With this, I boarded the canal boat on the James River
and Kanawha Canal, which boat left every evening at the foot of 7th
street for its trip up the canal. These boats were fitted to take a long
trip, uncomfortable though it might be. It was pulled by three horses
going at a rapid trot, the front one ridden by the driver who blew a
horn for the locks and the mail and to change horses. The efforts of the
drivers on freight boats on these horns were often artistic and as
musical as an accomplished bugler. Nothing of that sort was ever
attempted by the boy who rode the horses on the passenger boat. The
passengers in good weather sat on camp stools on the top of the boat and
a man at the end steered, at frequent intervals calling out “low bridge”
at which all on deck ducked their heads to avoid the low bridges which
so frequently crossed the canal from one portion of a farm to another.
The kitchen was at the end of the boat. In the long saloon on each side
was a seat running the whole length, which was converted into beds at
night. In the centre of the saloon was a long table upon which meals
were served. Just after leaving Richmond the sentry came around to
inspect the passes and verify the descriptions they contained of their
possessors. He usually completed his rounds seven or eight miles out
about the time the canal boat reached the “grave yard,” an open space
extending out from the canal and covered by water in which were sunk
worn out canal boats.
When ready to return to Richmond I was to do so by the Plank Road, but
the instant we struck this road we found it blocked by heavy trees that
had been cut down and thrown across the road so as to render it
impassable for horse or man. We quickly learned that this was to
intercept Dahlgren’s raiders who were then some distance up the river
and were supposed to be approaching by the Plank Road. All the
neighborhood had sent their horses out into the woods in the custody of
the most faithful of the negroes to prevent their seizure by the
raiders, and silverware and other articles portable had been concealed
so that preparations were fully made for the arrival of Dahlgren’s
troops. This occurred the next day. They had crossed the river at a ford
a short distance above under the guidance of a negro of the neighborhood
who had essayed to pilot them to Richmond and when they reached these
obstructions on the Plank Road they were compelled to deflect their
course so that they were carried around Richmond instead of into it, and
here at this point where they left the Plank road occurred an incident
that I could not understand then and do not clearly understand now. They
hung their negro guide. They left his body hanging and after it was
taken down by residents, the rope was cut into small pieces and passed
around as mementoes. I feel assured that Dahlgren’s men could not impute
to the negro knowledge of the obstructions in the road. The
circumstances enforced this conclusion. The obstructions had just been
placed; their appearance made this self evident. As a matter of fact
they had been put there during the night by parties sent from Richmond
and were entirely unknown to persons in the vicinity. The negro guide
had been picked up miles above at a time when it was patent to any one
he could not have known of these obstructions. The slightest
acquaintance with negro character during the war should moreover have
informed the raiders that no negro would have volunteered to pilot
Federal troops with the intent of leading them into trouble, or of not
performing for them all he was capable of, and I can only conclude that
he was a victim of combined ignorance of the negro and irritation at
being intercepted in their progress. If they had reached nearer to
Richmond they would have found almost every white citizen in the City,
whatever his station or occupation, armed and in the trenches around the
city awaiting their arrival, so that getting into the City was
practically impossible.
The Confederate hospitals in Richmond were possibly the most interesting
places for most persons. The officers’ hospital was at Richmond College
at that time in the country about a mile from the built up city. Since
then the City has built out to and beyond it. The Seabrook Hospital,
occupied exclusively by privates, was a collection of one story long
frame buildings in the neighborhood of 23d street and Franklin Street.
The surgeon in chief was Dr. Gravett with whose family we were intimate
and a feature of this hospital was the delightful biscuits made there by
the cook. The Chimborazo Hospital was another famous one. Between this
hospital and a point on the open ground across from President Davis’
residence the signal corps men every night exchanged signals in
practicing, a group of men being stationed on the hill near the hospital
with their torch and another group with a torch on the other side of the
valley in the space next the President’s house. The President’s house,
now the Confederate Museum, was one of the prettiest houses in Richmond.
The president met with a sad loss there in the death of his son. At the
time this occurred some one started a subscription among the children to
erect a monument to the memory of the child and the names of all who
subscribed were written on paper, it being also there written that the
monument was a gift from the playmates of the boy and the paper was
placed in the monument erected over the grave at Hollywood. My name was
included, but I am sure that scarcely one in the entire number was in
fact a playmate of the boy who was so delicate that his only companion
was his nurse.
The most interesting sights were the fortifications around Richmond. Out
on the Mechanicsville turnpike about two miles beyond the Alms House was
the inner fort on the North. This was manned by a battery composed of
Norfolk men under command of a Captain Hendren, two deserters from the
Union Army were placed in this battery. They were treated in a most
friendly way by the men, but they seemed out of place themselves and
awkward and strange. Why they should have deserted I could not
understand, for an exchange of the ample fare of the Union soldier with
their luxuries for the cornbread and bacon of the Confederates could not
have been an attraction. This same pike while the Battle of Cold Harbor
was in progress presented an intensely interesting appearance, clear
from Richmond to the narrow Chickahomini River and beyond, it was lined
with soldiers, horses and wagons hurrying to and fro and one of the most
attractive sights was the stream of Union prisoners just captured and
being marched into Richmond. One prisoner I recall as a common type, he
was a German emigrant utterly unable to speak a word of English, dressed
in a new Zouave uniform of gaudy colors and he evidently labored under
the delusion that he was going to better his condition by exchanging
from a fighter in the Union army to a prisoner in the Confederacy. I
believe if he had had any conception of the restrictive diet of the
prisoner or Confederate soldier, for both fared about alike, he would
have been less easily captured, and the bounty and substitute money that
no doubt had been securely disposed of by him at his enlistment were
going to look less alluring in a Confederate prison than the future
these pictured to him while he enjoyed his exceedingly brief army
experience.