"I have Richmond by the throat!" General Grant wrote in October, 1864.
In February, 1868, when these lines are written, black hands have got
Virginia by the throat, and she is suffocating; Cuffee grins, Cuffee
gabbles--the groans of the "Old Mother" make him laugh.
Messieurs of the great Northwest, she gave you being, and suckled you!
Are you going to see her strangled before your very eyes?
II.
NIGHTMARE.
In truth, if not held by the throat, as General Grant announced,
Richmond and all the South in that autumn of 1864, was staggering,
suffocating, reeling to and fro under the immense incubus of
all-destroying war.
At that time black was the "only wear," and widows and orphans were
crying in every house throughout the land. Bread and meat had become no
longer necessaries, but luxuries. Whole families of the old aristocracy
lived on crusts, and even by charity. Respectable people in Richmond
went to the "soup-houses." Men once rich, were penniless, and borrowed
to live. Provisions were incredibly dear. Flour was hundreds of dollars
a barrel; bacon ten dollars a pound; coffee and tea had become unknown
almost. Boots were seven hundred dollars a pair. The poor skinned the
dead horses on battle-fields to make shoes. Horses cost five thousand
dollars.
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