All things were thus unhinged. Misery had let loose upon the
community all the outlaws of civilization; the scum and dregs of
society had come to the top, and floated on the surface in the
sunlight.
The old respectable population of the old respectable city had
disappeared, it seemed. The old respectable habitudes had fallen into
contempt. Gambling-houses swarmed everywhere; and the military police
ignored them. "The very large number of houses," said a contemporary
journal, "on Main and other streets, which have numbers painted in
large gilt figures over the door, and illuminated at night, are faro
banks. The fact is not known to the public. The very large numbers of
flashily dressed young men, with villainous faces, who hang about the
street corners in the daytime, are not gamblers, garroters, and plugs,
but young men studying for the ministry, and therefore exempt from
military duty. This fact is not known to General Winder." The quiet and
orderly city had, in a word, become the haunt of burglars, gamblers,
adventurers, blockade-runners. The city, once the resort of the most
elegant society in Virginia, had been changed by war and misery into a
strange chaotic caravanserai, where you looked with astonishment on the
faces going and coming, without knowing in the least "who was who," or
whether your acquaintance was an honest man or a scoundrel.
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