RICHMOND SCENES IN ’62.

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a real home in a pleasant brown-walled house on Franklin street, divided fromthe pavement by a garden full of bounteous greenery, where it was easy toforget the discomforts of our previous mode of life. I shall not attempt todescribe the rapidity with which thrilling excitements succeeded each otherin our experiences in this house. The gathering of many troops around thetown filled the streets with a continually moving panorama of war, and wespent our time in greeting, cheering, choking with sudden emotion, and quiv-ering in anticipation of what was yet to follow. We had now finished otherbattle-flags [see “ Virginia Scenes in ’61,” Vol. I., p. 160], and one of them wasbestowed upon the “ Washington Artillery” of New Orleans , a body of admi-rable soldiers who had wakened to enthusiasm the daughters of Virginia inproportion, I dare say, to the woe they had created among the daughters ofLouisiana in bidding them good-bye. One morning an orderly arrived torequest that the ladies would be out upon the veranda at a given hour; and,punctual to the time fixed, the travel-stained battalion filed past our house.These were no holiday soldiers. Their gold was tarnished and their scarletfaded by sun and wind and gallant service — they were veterans now 011 theirway to the front, where the call of duty never failed to find the flower ofLouisiana . As they came in line with us, the officers saluted with their swords,the band struck up “My Maryland,” the tired soldiers sitting upon thecaissons that dragged heavily through the muddy street set up a rousingcheer. And there in the midst of them, taking the April wind with daringcolor, was our flag, dipping low until it passed us! One must grow old andcold indeed before such things are forgotten.

A few days later, on coming out of church—it is a curious fact that mostof our exciting news spread over Richmond on Sunday, and just at that hour— we heard of the crushing blow of the fall of New Orleans and the destruc-tion of our iron-clads. My brother had just reported aboard one of thosesplendid ships, as yet unfinished. As the news came directly from our kins-man, General Randolph, the Secretary of War, there was no doubting it; andwhile the rest of us broke into lamentation, Mr. Jules de St. Martin, thebrother-in-law of Mr. Judah P. Benjamin , merely shrugged his shoulders,with a thoroughly characteristic gesture, making no remark.

“ This must affect your interests,” some one said to him inquiringly.

“ I am ruined, voila tout /” was the rejoinder—and this was soon confirmed.

This debonair little gentleman was one of the greatest favorites of our warsociety in Richmond. His cheerfulness, his wit, his exquisite courtesy, madehim friends everywhere; and although his nicety of dress, after the patternof the boulevarcUer fini of Paris , was the subject of much wonderment to thepopulace when he first appeared upon the streets, it did not prevent him fromjoining the volunteers before Richmond when occasion called, and roughing itin the trenches like a veteran. His cheerful endurance of hardship during afreezing winter of camp life became a proverb in the army later in the siege.

For a time nothing was talked of but the capture of New Orleans . Of themidshipman, my brother, we heard that on the day previous to the taking ofthe forts, after several days’ bombardment by the United States fleet under

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