broken open the building and were carrying away everything movable, furniture, cadets’ trunks, books, guns and swords. Indeed, their vandalism spared nothing. I went to my room and was able to secure my blankets and my knife and fork and my books. It was intensely distressing to observe the property of the cadets who were off in the discharge of their duty, boldly appropriated and carried off before my eyes by these multitudinous freebooters who preyed upon it as if it was so much public spoils free to all who chose to help themselves. I tarried there a very short while, carrying away with me what I had been able to save of my own to my home. In leaving I noticed that the brick arsenal across the road from the Institute had been, during the night, blown up with such force that the fresh dirt in two graves alongside had been blown out. They were the graves of two negroes who shortly before had been hung on the hill to the east of the Institute, having been found guilty of burglarously entering the cellar of the Rev. Dr. Moses D. Hoge, the Presbyterian minister in Richmond, out of which they had stolen a couple of hams. After reaching my home, I went down to the Spotswood Hotel at the corner of 8th and Main streets just on the edge of where the fire was raging. Why the Confederate troops had set fire, as was reported of them in their evacuation of Richmond, I could not understand. The fire was most disastrous in extent and in the character of the buildings. It was in the business section; and the post office, a granite building on Main street between 9th and 10th in which was President Davis’ office was the only building left standing within a wide radius. Scenes similar to what I had seen enacted at the Military Institute were also taking place on the edge of the fire district. Stores were being broken into and looted by women, men and boys. Barrels of flour were being rolled away, bolts of cloth, boxes filled with all sorts of commodities, groceries, tobacco, etc. In the midst of this carnival of plunder a lot of women, a half dozen in number, had concentrated their attention on a particular bolt of unbleached coarse cotton cloth and in the contest for it had unwound it, each one pulling her way. Others around were carrying away equally valuable goods ad libitum, but these viragos ignored the ample opportunities elsewhere, concentrating their energies on their fight for this particular cloth. The temptation to myself and to another boy of my age with me was so strong to incommode them in their senseless conduct that we took small bags of tobacco from two barrels in front of a store under the Spotswood Hotel and pelted them with the tobacco. While thus engaged the fire gradually crept around in the rear of Main street towards Franklin and had reached an arsenal on 8th street for making bomb shells. Soon the shells began to burst and pieces flew in our direction, breaking windows and scattering the crowd, including the fighting women, who got away