government, its stolen bullion, and its Doctors of Divinity on board, moved out from the city.

At the same hour the Governor of Virginia, William Smith, and the Legislature, embarked in a canal-boat, on the James River and Kanawha Canal, for Lynchburg. On all the roads were men, women, and children, in carriages of every description, with multitudes on horseback and on foot, flying from the Rebel capital. Men who could not get away were secretly at work, during those night-hours, burying plate and money in gardens; ladies secreted their jewels, barred and bolted their doors, and passed a sleepless night, fearful of the morrow, which would bring in the despised "Vandal horde of Yankee ruffians"; for such were the epithets they had persistently ap plied to the soldiers of the Union throughout the war.

But the government was not quite through with its operations in Richmond. General Ewell remained till daylight on Monday morning to clear up things, not to burn public archives in order to destroy evidence of Confederate villany, but to add to the crime already committed another so atrocious that the stanchest friends of the Confederacy recoiled with horror even from its contemplation.

It was past midnight when the Mayor learned that Ewell had issued orders for firing the government buildings and the tobacco warehouses. He sent a deputation of prominent citizens to remonstrate. They were referred to Major Melton, who was to apply the torch.

"It is a cowardly pretext on the part of the citizens, trumped up to save their property for the Yankees," said he.

The committee endeavored to dissuade him from the act.

"I shall execute my orders," said he.

They went to General Ewell, who with an oath informed them that the torch would be applied at daylight. Breckenridge was there, who said that it would be a disgrace to the Confederate government to endanger the destruction of the entire city. He was Secretary of War, and could have countermanded the order. Will not history hold him accountable?

To prevent the United States from obtaining possession of a few thousand hogsheads of tobacco, a thousand houses were destroyed by fire, the heart of the city burnt out, all of the

business portion, all the banks and insurance-offices, half of the newspapers, with mills, depots, bridges, founderies, workshops, dwellings, churches, — thirty squares in all, swept clean by the devouring flames. It was the final work of the Confederate government. Inaugurated in heat and passion, carried on by hate and prejudice, its end was but in keeping with its career, the total disregard of the rights of person and property.

In the outskirts of the city, on the Mechanicsville road, was the almshouse, filled with the lame, the blind, the halt, poor, sick, bed-ridden creatures. Ten rods distant was a magazine containing fifteen or twenty kegs of powder, which might have been rolled into the creek near at hand, and was of little value to a victorious army with full supplies of ammunition; but the order of Jeff Davis to blow up the magazines was peremptory and must be executed.

"We give you fifteen minutes to get out of the way," was the sole notice to that crowd of helpless beings lying in their cots, at three o'clock in the morning. Men and women begged for mercy; but their cries were in vain. The officer in charge of the matter was inexorable. Clotheless and shoeless, the inmates ran in terror from the spot to seek shelter in the ravines; but those who could not run while the train to fire it was being laid, rent the air with shrieks of agony. The match was applied at the time. The concussion crushed in the broad side of the house as if it had been pasteboard. Windows flew into flinders. Bricks, stones, timbers, beams, and boards were whirled through the air. Trees were twisted off like withes in the hands of a giant. The city was wrenched and rocked as by a volcanic convulsion. The dozen poor wretches whose infirmities prevented their leaving the house were horribly mangled; and when the fugitives who had sought shelter in the fields re-. turned to the ruins they found only the bruised and blackened remains of their fellow-inmates.

Let us take a parting glance at the Rebel army as it leaves the city.

The day is brightening in the east. The long line of baggage-wagons and the artillery has been rumbling over the bridges all night. The railroad trains have been busy in con

veying the persons and property of both the government and the people; but the last has departed, and still a disappointed crowd is left at the depot. The roads leading west are filled with fugitives in all sorts of vehicles, and on horseback and on foot.

Men are rolling barrels of tar and turpentine upon the bridges. Guards stand upon the Manchester side to prevent the return of any soldier belonging to Richmond. Custis Lee's division has crossed, and Kershaw's division, mainly of South Carolinians, follows. The troops march silently; they are depressed in spirit. The rabble of Manchester have found out what fine times their friends in Richmond are having, and old women and girls are streaming across the bridges laden with plunder, webs of cloth, blankets, overcoats, and food from the government storehouses.. The war-worn soldiers, ragged and barefoot, behold it, and utter curses against the Confederate government for having deprived them of clothing and food.

General Ewell crosses the bridge, riding an iron-gray horse. He wears an old faded cloak and slouch hat. He is brutal and profane, mingling oaths with his orders. Following him is John Cabel Breckenridge, the long, black, glossy hair of other days changed to gray, his high, broad forehead wrinked and furrowed. He is in plain black, with a talma thrown over his shoulders. He talks with Ewell, and gazes upon the scene. Suddenly a broad flash of light leaps up beyond the city, accompanied with a dull, heavy roar, and he sees the air filled with flying timbers of the hospital, whose inmates, almost without warning, and without cause or crime, are blown into eternity.

The last division has crossed the river. The sun is up. A match is touched to the turpentine spread along the timbers, and the bridges are in flames; also the tobacco warehouses, the flouring-mills, the arsenals, and laboratory. The Rebel troops behold the conflagration as they wind along the roads and through the green fields towards the southwest, and memory brings back the scenes of their earlier rejoicing. It is the 2d of April, four years lacking two weeks since the drunken carousal over the passage of the ordinance of Secession.

It was a little past four o'clock when Major A. H. Stevens of the Fourth Massachusetts cavalry, and Provost Marshal of