Page:History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry in the War Between the States.djvu/32

26 The evidence of the immense resources of the United States Government was displayed at this point. The accumulation of commissary supplies seemed endless. We saw a small lake of vinegar, which, bursting from huge piles of barrels, had extinguished the fire, and covered the ground for some feet beyond the charred mass of staves and hoops. The houghs of hams and shoulders were still discernable over a surface of a thousand feet of charred bacon and smouldering ashes. Eggs packed in salt were here—some raw, some partly cooked, some cooked hard, and some burnt—in numbers larger than we had ever seen before. Many barrels of salted fish remained unscathed by the fire.

The sutlers' encampment, the canvas of which only had burned, showed evidences of a hurried evacuation. Cheeses, crackers, lard, butter, cakes, oranges, lemons, raisins, dry goods (embracing even hooped skirts), stationery, tobacco, and, in a few instances, trunks containing money, watches, and jewelry, fell into the hands of our troopers. Riding in early twilight among the blackened poles of the tents, the writer of this account saw many chickens roosting, and our troopers gently lifting them from their roosts, and, following their example, he bore away two, to furnish him the first meal for that day. Immense piles of muskets we found burned, and many wagons had been backed over the bank into the river. Many also remained as they stood before the evacuation. The hospital tents remained intact, and in the distance resembled a village of painted cottages. The embalming office, a small, neat, wooden structure, was located in a ravine, which made into the river above the bridge. A sign giving the embalmer's name, painted in large letters upon a piece of cotton duck, attracted the writer's attention. Dismounting, he entered the small room, and found in a costly coffin of walnut the lifeless body of a man, noble in features, of manly form, and covered with a winding-sheet, its sole tenant. A ball from a rifle or bursting shell had penetrated the forehead near the hair, and freed the spirit once animating this body.