Provisions of every description were sold at enormous
prices. Fathers of families could scarcely procure the plainest food for
their wives and children. The streets were dotted with poor widows,
bereaved sisters, weeping mothers, and pale daughters, whose black
dresses told the story of their loss to all eyes. Hunger clutched at the
stomach; agony tore the heart. Soldiers, pale and tottering from their
wounds, staggered by. Cannon rattled through the streets. Couriers
dashed backward and forward from the telegraph office to the war office.
The poor starved--the rich scarcely fared any better. Black hair had
become white. Stalwart frames were bent and shrunken. Spies and secret
emissaries lurked, and looked at you sidewise. Forestallers crowded the
markets. Bread was doled out by the ounce. Confederate money by the
bushel. Gold was hoarded and buried. Cowards shrunk and began to
whisper--"the flesh pots! the flesh pots! they were better!" Society was
uprooted from its foundations. Strange characters were thrown up. The
scum had come to the top, and bore itself bravely in the sunshine. The
whole social fabric seemed warped and wrenched from its base; and in the
midst of this chaos of starving women, feverish men, spies,
extortioners, blockade-runners,--over the "doomed city," day and night,
rolled the thunder of the cannon, telling that Grant and Lee were still
holding their high debate at Petersburg.
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