Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/173

 The. Fall of Rn-hnontl. 159

In the excitement and stampede which followed the appearance of the Northern army our party became separated, and I have no recollection of how the others reached their homes. But what hap- pened to me is as distinct in my mind to-day as it was the day after it occurred. I was living at that time on Seventh street, between Clay and Leigh, and my most direct way home was to go diagonally through the Capitol Square, entering it at Eleventh and Bank streets and leaving it at Ninth and Capitol. This route I took. It carried me by the old Library Building, since destroyed, then by the front of the Capitol itself, and so by the Washington Monument. When I arrived here my experiences of the day reached a final climax. When I started up town a few minutes before, the Federal advance force of occupation was coming up Main street. This street was followed until Ninth street was reached, where a turn was made to the north in the direction of St. Paul's Church, and just as I reached the Washington Monument, I was little less than horrified to see the troops entering the Square through the main entrance facing Grace street. In my youth I was not, at least, notoriously either a bad or cowardly boy, but that sight, so new and unexpected, was rather too much for my surprised nerves, and for one thing I quickly betook myself to the largest tree I could find and hid myself. Here I stood as the soldiers swept into the Square, passed the Monument, and went on to the Capitol. It was then only a few minutes later so my memory serves me that I saw the United States flag appear on the flag-pole above, where the Stars and Bars had floated for years. Four years before this, on a day, I think, in this same month of April, my father, always a strong secessionist, had taken me to this same Square to a great meeting in ratification of the ordinance of secession, and I recollect to have seen then the flag of the Con- federacy raised on the Capitol where the Stars and Stripes had waved from time immemorial. Putting the two things together. I have often said that, as a boy, I saw the Alpha and Omega the be- ginning and the end of the Southern Confederacy in old Virginia. As to the first, I was, of course, far too young to be in any way affected by it, but as to the latter, I must say, as I stood behind that tree and saw what I saw, I remembered my dead soldier brother, what we had suffered for what we deemed right, and my young heart was filled with bitter hate, and my lips, which had never be- fore uttered an oath, poured maledictions on our triumphant foes. Then I went home, and so practically closed those two days in my