Lawley and I went to inspect the site of Mr Mason's (the
Southern Commissioner in London) once pretty house — a melancholy scene. It had
been charmingly situated near the outskirts of the town, and by all accounts
must have been a delightful little place. When Lawley saw it seven months ago,
it was then only a ruin; but since that time Northern vengeance (as directed by
General Milroy) has satiated itself by destroying almost the very foundations
of the house of this arch-traitor, as they call him. Literally not one stone
remains standing upon another; and the debris seems to have been carted
away, for there is now a big hole where the principal part of the house stood.
Troops have evidently been encamped upon the ground, which was strewed with
fragments of Yankee clothing, accoutrements, &c.
I understand that Winchester used to be a most agreeable
little town, and its society extremely pleasant. Many of its houses are now
destroyed or converted into hospitals; the rest look miserable and dilapidated.
Its female inhabitants (for the able-bodied males are all absent in the army)
are familiar with the bloody realities of war. As many as 5000 wounded have
been accommodated here at one time. All the ladies are accustomed to the
bursting of shells and the sight of fighting, and all are turned into hospital
nurses or cooks.
From the utter impossibility of procuring corn, I was forced
to take the horses out grazing a mile beyond the town for four hours in the
morning and two in the afternoon. As one mustn't lose sight of them for a
moment, this occupied me all day, while Lawley wrote in the house. In the
evening we went to visit two wounded officers in Mrs ——'s house, a major and a
captain in the Louisianian Brigade which stormed the forts last Sunday week. I
am afraid the captain will die. Both are shot through the body, but are cheery.
They served under Stonewall Jackson until his death, and they venerate his
name, though they both agree that he has got an efficient successor in Ewell,
his former companion in arms; and they confirmed a great deal of what General
Johnston had told me as to Jackson having been so much indebted to Ewell for
several of his victories. They gave us an animated account of the spirits and
feeling of the army. At no period of the war, they say, have the men been so
well equipped, so well clothed, so eager for a fight, or so confident of
success — a very different state of affairs from that which characterised the
Maryland invasion of last year, when half of the army were barefooted
stragglers, and many of the remainder unwilling and reluctant to cross the
Potomac.
Miss —— told me to-day that dancing and horseracing are
forbidden by the Episcopal Church in this part of Virginia.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 234-6
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