One of the incidents to the rehabilitation of Richmond after the evacuation and the accompanying disastrous fire was the great influx of mercantile firms from the North with every kind of goods imaginable. Why they should have rushed in thus with their oceans of merchandise to sell to impoverished Confederates was to me a mystery. As might be imagined prices fell very low and large numbers of the new comers failed completely. Another incident of the new order of things was the flooding of the City with counterfeit money, particularly small notes for fractional amounts of a dollar, some of the counterfeits being wretched productions. Another feature was the way in which architects and builders from the North stepped in to help rebuild the burned district, resulting in better buildings than before, but with in many cases no commensurate profit to the builders. At that time was first introduced into Richmond the ground rent system that prevails so extensively in Baltimore and Philadelphia. The first house under this system was built on a lot where had stood the house from which salt orders had been issued during the war. The salt mines belonged to and were worked by the State and a system of free distribution was inaugurated in consequence of the scarcity and the necessity of salt so that each householder depending upon the size of his family was entitled to receive gratuitously a certain quantity weekly for which an order was issued to him. The most gruesome sight during the war was to see the vast numbers of wounded Confederate soldiers brought into Richmond in the trains. This was constantly occurring and was most noticeable during the great battles in the neighborhood of Fredericksburg. The attention given to the wounded appeared to be scant before reaching Richmond. And they were brought down on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad and unloaded on Broad street to be taken to the hospitals very much as they were taken from the field of battle. How they were able to pass through the suffering they must have endured before reaching the hospital was a miracle, only to be accounted for by the life of exposure to the open air, endurance and their strong vitality.