short religious service, held by Rev. Dr. White, pastor of the Presbyterian church. As the great clock on the tower struck one, Jackson's shrill voice shouted: "Forward! March!" The boys and their captain passed away from those quiet scenes forever; and we who were left realized with agonized defiance that the war had indeed begun.

On arriving in Richmond, the cadets were given in charge of another officer, and Jackson was sent to Harper's Ferry as colonel of the Virginia troops gathered there. Then commenced that career which, growing brighter and brighter to the end, ennobled not himself only, but all who served under him.

With scarce an exception, every member of the Institute faculty reported promptly for duty, and many of them held high military office and attained honorable distinction. The cadet corps, too, did splendid service on many a hard-fought field. But from the solemn spectacle of their departure, the 22nd of April, 1861, until the pageant of May 15th, 1863, when, wrapped in the flag of the Confederacy, his maimed and dead body was at his own request brought back to the home he loved, and laid in the old graveyard at Lexington, their leader had been the inspiration of his troops. And wherever military science is valued and military virtue admired, and a stainless escutcheon of personal rectitude respected, the conduct and character of Stonewall Jackson will be honored.

ter.

After Jackson's death, the months rolled along gloomily enough, each one doubtless pressing heavily upon the heart of our commander in chief, burdened and discouraged as it already was by the loss of his great lieutenant, and a constant struggle with adverse circumstances from almost every quarIn the spring of 1864, Lexington—or the collection of men too old and boys too young and mechanics unfit for service in the army, with soldiers on sick-leave, and women and children, which went by the name of Lexington then--was continually harassed by threatened raids of the enemy. It is amusing, and pitiful too, to remember,

at this distance of time, how, under such threats, the few white-haired men left would straighten their stiff limbs, and gather up the boys who were importantly stretching themselves up for the occasion, and start off double-quick to the defense of their women and their homes. During one of these raids a lady of social eminence in the town died, and there were not enough men in her own condition in life left to pick up the hand bier and carry her to her grave!

But as these alarms never amounted to anything, we rather grew callous under them; when suddenly, General David Hunter came swooping down upon us, thirty thousand strong, they said. That 13th of June, 1864, can never be forgotten. The enemy, planting his guns upon an eminence opposite, fired upon the Institute barracks, and (after a short skirmish at the river, which was to give General McCausland time to drive off his important but very decrepit wagon-train) raked the principal streets of the town. I sat at my front window on the main street, trying to quiet the panic of a little child, when a shell, whizzing past me, and burying the ball in my neighbor's house, threw the ugly fragments of its casing over my doorsteps. Not long after another shell penetrated the roof, doing some damage in an upper chamber, and shaking our nerves in the cellar, to which we had retreated. An old gentleman, the father of my neighbor, occupied this room, and peremptorily refused to follow his daughter to our place of refuge, saying he was too old and lame to get down to it. But the entrance of the shell, scattering plaster upon him as he was lying in bed asleep, effectually waked him, and with commendable haste he soon sat beside us. If "tears to laughter be allied," surely laughter may come, as it did now, to the relief of our fright and anxiety. Many escapes were chronicled, but not a life was lost or limb broken.

About the middle of the afternoon the troops crossed the river at the foot of the town on a pontoon bridge (the citizens had burnt the wooden one), and poured into the streets and highways, and we then for the time underwent the usual experience of oc

cupied towns. Every large yard became a camp ground, and everybody's kitchen and supplies, scant as they were, were seized by the invaders. The morning of the 14th, crossing the main street to visit a sick friend, I saw volumes of flame ascending from the towers of the Institute barracks. One after another, all the buildings were burned, except the house of the superintendent, to whom they had accorded twenty hours' delay for the removal of a very ill daughter. Passing on to the college buildings with the same purpose of destruction, they were met by an old alumnus, and yielding to his reasonings, recalled the order; but, notwithstanding, the college was sacked, its apparatus destroyed, and library greatly injured. But their work was not completed till Governor Letcher's house was in ashes. Before leaving the Institute hill, they lifted the bronze statue of Washington from its pedestal, and carrying it off, presented it to the capitol of West Virginia, at Wheeling.

In those days the people lived mainly indoors, and behind closed shutters. Every few hours came the spectacle of squads of soldiers, dragging in from their places of concealment the Confederates who had been in the town on sick-leave. Nobody undressed at night, nor slept-for the night watchmen trailed the points of their bayonets over the pavements with a noise so peculiar as not to allow a moment's relief to one's excited nerves. Our great care was over articles of food-the chief of which were bacon and flour, and they far from abundant. Of the one, I had a few pieces carefully wrapped and secreted between the mattresses of my Irish nurse, with much ease to my mind. But my immense wealth in nine barrels of flour disturbed me greatly, inasmuch as I could not intrust a servant with the secret of their hiding place, by employing him to roll them into it. How I managed I forget; but eight barrels were carried into an upper passage, and I felt secure. After the enemy had gone, how great my surprise and disgust at finding them so placed that a telltale looking-glass was absolutely volunteering information of them to every passer-by. A

much-valued heir-loom of Revolutionary renown was about as carefully concealed. My entire energies seemed to concentrate upon a book manuscript of my husband, about which he had left stringent directions. I disposed of it about my person with sanctimonious satisfaction, and left in the very desk out of which I had drawn it a bond bearing interest-not in Confederate paper, but in gold! It was well for me that mine was the solitary house in the village unentered by a search party. When the danger was over, and I saw how near I had come to the sacrifice of our living for that beloved brochure on metaphysics, my fright only equaled my indignation.

For this immunity from search parties, and from many other troubles incident to our circumstances, I was indebted to the loyalty of my cook, a very fat, very black, and very good-tempered woman, possessed of infinite tact and presence of mind and of amazing pluck. Having, as may be supposed, scant duty in her own department, she would lock her kitchen and spend her time on the front doorstep, where, by her wit and finesse, she kept at bay the crowd of soldiers surrounding her. Her resources in defense seemed exhaustless. Tossing her head about, she would joke, parry their attacks, evade their inquiries, slip from under their orders, circumvent their maneuvers, and resist their demands with a hilarious diplomacy as bold and presevering as it was successful. Her only assumption of independence that we remarked afterwards was in her vehement talk to the young negroes about her: "I ain't none o' yer Aunt Nancy; I am Mrs. Nancy Johnston, I tell you, and I want you to mind that."

We suffered no personal violence or insult from the enemy, though some loss and annoyance. They seized the cows that our old people and babies depended upon, and slaughtered them, which was a trial; and levied so voraciously upon the acres of onions we had cultivated for our own men, as that we could nowhere escape the odor of them; and that was hard to bear. A cup of cold water I could have given my suffering

enemy with every element of Christian charity, but to allow him one of those cherished onions was too much.

1 The occupation was short. One afternoon we recognized the sound of signal guns; towards midnight there was a general stir among the soldiers; wheels were heard rolling rapidly, and the tramp of men moving off in haste. By daylight nearly all were gone. We breathed freely once more, but were agape with wonder as to the cause of the sudden stampede. We soon knew. Breckinridge's army came in, in hot pursuit, but all too late; the game had fled. How grieved we were that such a splendid military situation for the capture of the whole division as that of the mountain fastnesses between us and Lynchburg had been lost!

Hunter's splendidly equipped army, as it appeared in our streets, seemed to me a magnificent military review on some gay Fourth of July. How great its contrast to our woe-begone division of half-clad, halffed, poorly armed men, with a wagon-train incapable of sustaining any other than the light weight of the Confederate commissariat. The war was fast drawing to a close. Provisions were getting scarcer and dearer as the men to till the ground and reap the harvests and grind the grain became fewer and fewer. Shoes were hard to get both for home and for the army. Clothing was scant likewise. I paid $200 for eight yards of linsey with the warp of Confederate cotton and the woof of wool carded and spun and dyed (with a wood dye) by an inexpert country woman-perhaps the wife or mother of a soldier. And I can truly say, a more hideous fabric was never put sacredly away in lavender for posterity than this garment; in which at the time, however, I felt royally arrayed. So much for female patriotism versus womanly vanity. At that same time in beleaguered Petersburg a barrel of flour would sell for $2,500! It is true, they were Confederate dollars, but nevertheless, it was very hard to build up such a pile as that while our soldiers sat bare-footed in the trenches and fought upon empty stomachs. At last the fatal day arrived, and April 9th,

1865, just four years from the fall of Fort Sumter, General Lee surrendered at Appomatox Court-house.

As I have said, General Lee, in December, 1865, became President of Washington College. In its advancement he spent the remainder of his life. The modest salary of $3,000 was, as soon as possible, increased to $5,000, and the trustees, desirous to relieve him of all family anxieties, begged that he would accept the house he lived in and the $5,000 per annum for his own lifetime, and that of his wife should she survive him. He was grateful for their kindness, but declined to receive anything for himself but a salary for services actually rendered; or for his wife any provision, especially one that might cripple a struggling institution. Many inducements to a more conspicuous life and an immensely larger income were of course during this period pressed upon him; but he never deserted those who had been so prompt to seek him. He became the center of the pride and affection of the whole community, and when, after four or five years of service, he died, the college and town. naturally claimed the privilege of standing guard over the precious dust of their hero. Richmond urged her right, a very strong one too, as the seat of the Confederacy and metropolis of the State, to bring the body to Hollywood and let pilgrims seek it there. under the flag of the capitol. But no! Mrs. Lee decided for Lexington; and there it lies in the vault under the chapel, having for a long time a student detailed daily to watch over it. After a year or two, Mrs. Lee-Mary Custis Lee-was laid beside him. A low, broad platform of dark grained wood covers the vault, and upon it are placed, side by side, two plain white marble slabs, inscribed with the names and dates of birth and death-nothing more: and there need be nothing more; for when the unprejudiced hand of the future holds the pen for posterity, we know that in the history of modern warfare no name will be written above that of the great captain who lies here, guarded not by soldiers, but by scholars. A neat railing incloses these slabs, within

which are vases constantly filled with fresh flowers; a lady in the town laying her own conservatory under contribution for this especial privilege. Outside the railing is the tomb of a lovely daughter, whose death preceded her mother's by only a few days. This tomb, though differing from the others, is characterized by the same simplicity. A recumbent statue of General Lee in marble, the work of Mr. Valentine, a native of Virginia, is finished, and will be put in place and unveiled during the oncoming centennial celebration.

After General Lee's death the trustees of the college, to emphasize yet more their gratitude and affections, changed Washington College into a University, under the title of Washington and Lee University. They then looked for a new president, and found him in the person of General G. W. Custis Lee, who for some years had been a professor in the Virginia Military Institute. It required much effort to overcome the selfdepreciating scruples of this gentleman; but at last, to the great pleasure of everybody, he yielded, and has by his ability justified their choice, and proved a worthy representative and successor of his father.

It took but a short time after the surrender to get the Institute again at work. The State had had full proof of its value, and though she was loaded with debt, and had to adjust herself to new political and industrial conditions, yet she resumed her patronage of the Institute, and by degrees has fully repaired all the damage of Hunter's campaign. Even the bronze Washington is in its old place, and a new lease of at least ninety-nine years seems to have been taken out.

I must pause to mention one other school -the Ann Smith Female Academy. It is a pleasure to see that our grandfathers did not forget the educational needs of the girls, in the Latin and Greek and Mathematics and everything else they were providing for the boys. In the beginning of the century they put up, considering the time, a very large and commodious house for a female boarding-school, and imported a Miss Ann Smith as principal of it. Doubtless she gave satis

faction, as they complimented her by stamping her name upon the Academy. Female schools in such nearness to a college can never boast of success as to numbers. It has been so with this one: still it has turned out, in every generation from then till now, well-educated, excellent women in every walk in life, with some brilliant examples that would illustrate the highest stations.

After marking the changes and taking in the fact that the town is just twice as large as when I left it, sixteen years ago, I naturally stroll into the old burying-ground. A new territory has been added, and for a moment I can hardly find my way to the graves of my own household. But a short pause brushes away the present, and the distant past comes vividly before me. In that long-ago the "old church" stood in this ground. It was a frame building, a parallelogram in shape, with a multiplicity of doors and windows down its long sides, and capable of seating seven or eight hundred people. A gallery ran on three sides, which was entered by high, uncovered steps from the outside. The end gallery, when I first remember, was occupied by a gay choir seated behind red curtains on rings, through which ran the iron rod that stretched across it. When the singing began, these curtains were drawn before the singers with a great clatter of the rings, and put back with the same noise when the hymn was over. The rattle made edifying breaks in the service to us children, though the old people regarded it in such a serious way that the choir and the curtains and the new tunes threatened to make trouble in the congregation. Opposite the choir was a great high affair of a pulpit, with a bench. below for a clerk or precentor, who in early days, before the choir existed, read out and then sang two lines of the hymn at a time, the whole congregation vociferously following; and a monstrous wooden soundingboard, innocent of architectural rule and defiant of architectural effect, was suspended in a dangerous-looking way, by wires over the preacher's head. There was a long aisle down the middle of the church, crossed by a short one in front of the pulpit. Where