evening we reached City Point after dark and the following morning in looking out my state room window I was delighted and elated at seeing away up on the bank alongside a frame house a Confederate soldier with gun doing picket duty. So constantly had I been thrown with Union soldiers and had only seen Confederates as prisoners of war that to see a Confederate soldier free and in arms doing duty on Confederate soil was like a haven long sought for. The train of two passenger coaches with an antiquated engine had brought down from Petersburg a large number of people evidently attracted by curiosity and a number collected on shore around the gang plank and exchanged newspapers with those on board the boats. The large quantity of baggage we carried quickly brought us trouble, for twelve trunks and a large chest for a family of two adults and three children at a time when one traveling by a flag of truce carried his baggage in his hand, excited suspicion and upon our arrival at Petersburg we were directed to there discontinue our trip to Richmond and my father was required to report daily to General Colston until his status as a loyal Southern citizen could be established. The Bollingbrook Hotel where we located was overflowing with Confederate officers, and after three days spent there and after word being sent from my father’s friends among them his cousin Jefferson T. Marten, Confederate States Marshall for Virginia and Charles W. Russell of the Confederate House of Representatives that if Dr. Hughes was not loyal no one was, we were permitted to proceed to our destination. I was impressed with the conviction that Gen. Colston’s action was merely from abundant caution, for the friendly spirit shown my father and the abundant good humor indicated that there was no real belief that all was not right, but that the circumstances required examination and explaining before we could be allowed to pass. A short ride soon brought our train to the long high bridge over the James River and as it crossed the bridge we got our first view of what was then wonderfully bustling Richmond with streets so crowded that Main Street from Eighth to Thirteenth on both sides was sometimes almost impassable, in marked contrast some years subsequent to the close of the war when on one business day during the busy hour of the day I once looked over the same stretch and counted in the entire length but three people. A rattling, uncomfortable omnibus carried us to the Ballard House, where we remained some weeks. This hotel, perhaps the best in Richmond, was in curious contrast to Barnum’s in Baltimore; at the latter every delicacy was furnished in abundance—at the Ballard House the dessert for dinner for instance consisted usually of rice pudding and apple pie, the balance of the menu and the balance of the meals were on the same scale. At this period there was only one other hotel in Richmond its equal, the