Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/184

 178 Southern Historical Society Papers.

The following letter was from Colonel W. T. Robins, a gallant and meritorious officer of the Confederate cavalry, then of Gloucester, but now a citizen of Richmond :

GLOUCESTER COURTHOUSE, February 20, 1878.

MY DEAR SIR, Your favor of the nth of February reached me in due course of mail. In reply to your inquiry as to the burning of Richmond in 1865, on the day of the evacuation, I can only give you the following statement :

My regiment crossed the river from Richmond to Manchester about 8 A. M., as well as I can remember, after the span of Mayo's bridge over the canal was fired. I remained in Manchester some time after crossing, but just how long I cannot now remember. However, I do remember seeing the fire on the Richmond side, and that quite a high wind was prevailing at the time, blowing from the river in the direction of the city. I remember having feared, in observing the fire with the effect of the high wind upon it, that the whole city would be consumed. The flames were spreading north- ward, fanned by the wind, up into the heart of the city. My posi- tion on the Manchester side was on elevated ground, which enabled me to observe perfectly that part of Richmond burning at that time.

I have the honor to remain

Very truly your obedient servant,

W. T. ROBINS. John Howard, Esq.

Here the strong element of the intervening wind in the extension of the fire, so much insisted upon by me in all the litigation as the proximate and legal cause of the insured losses, again appears, and I am reminded of a quotation I made in my argument in the Graeme insurance case in the Supreme Court of the United States, from Virgil's vivid description of the entrance of the Greeks into " burn- ing Troy," as the Federal troops into Richmond, and the extension of the fire by the same cause :

Irruant Danai, et tectum omne tenebant.

Illicet ignis edax summa ad fastigia vento

Volvitur ; exsuperant flammae, furit aestus ad auras.

In rushed the Greeks and held the place : on high Borne by the wind, in sheeted flakes of flame, Rolled on the conflagration to the stars.