During her absence from home a very disagreeable surprise was preparing for her. The militia of Wood County, Virginia, crossed over to the island and camped on the most eligible grounds they could find, the premises nearest Blennerhassett's buildings. The commander of this reckless and undisciplined infantry, Colonel Hugh Phelps, did not appear at the place of rendezvous until late in the day, having gone on a reconnoitering errand, to the mouth of the Kanawha, hoping to intercept Blennerhassett. The soldiers, if a name so honorable can be applied to the raw levy, mustered on the spur of the moment, assumed all the boisterous swagger which, as they imagined, was the prerogative of the citizen dressed in uniform and armed with musket. It was their idea that a soldier's privilege is insolence, and the badge of his superiority, self-importance. The captain and lieutenants exercised slight control over the men in the ranks, who conceived that the offices had gone to the wrong men. The Wood County militia regarded itself as an "army of occupation," by law and precedent warranted in abusing a brief authority. Instead of guarding and protecting property not their own, the men showed their patriotic zeal by mutilating or demolishing the results of Blennerhassett's labor. They took malicious pleasure in wantonly defacing whatever was elegant or ornamental. They tore off the fence-palings to build their camp-fires; they broke down young fruit trees and pulled up evergreen shrubs; they ransacked barns and outhouses, stole hoarded apples, killed chickens, and frightened the negro slaves out of their small wits. Peter Taylor protested in vain; the roysterers threatened to put Peter in the guard-house and gag him, or even to "string him up," if he didn't hold his tongue. The butler was forced to produce the keys to the wine-cellar, and the consequences of his surrender were what might have been expected. The mischief already perpetrated in coarse fun--the horseplay of backwoods big boys cut loose from restraint, though rude and destructive, was harmless compared with the orgies to which it was a prelude. The rich and abundant liquors stored away to supply the family demand for twenty years were in a day poured down the throats of the pseudo-soldiers. Under the influence of drink many of the privates, and not a few officers, lost all sense of decency. Some of the bolder among them entered the house, roamed through kitchen, parlor, library, bedrooms. One drunken lout smashed the rare violincello, another brought the gilded harp out into the barnyard and used it as a gridiron on which to roast a confiscated pig. The oil portrait of Blennerhassett, set up as a target, was riddled with bullets. Dominick made a frantic effort to rescue his father's picture from so ignominious a fate, but, cuffed on the ear by a bully, the boy had no recourse except to hide away in his mother's room with Harman and the black housemaid, Juno.