From the top of Libby Hill in Richmond the route is still pointed out by which the swiftly moving Union troops, after that fateful Sunday of the evacuation, advanced over the level lands from Petersburg towards the burning city. The bridges across the James were burnt, and acres of buildings in the business section were in flames when they came to the river bank and found that the greater portion of the affrighted people had fled. The Yankees quickly laid a pontoon bridge, crossed to Shockoe Hill, rushed up to the Capitol, and raised the Union "Stars and Stripes" on the roof, replacing the Confederate "Stars and Bars." Then they went vigorously to work putting out the fires, and the new infusion of life given the city by its baptism of blood imparted an energy which has not only restored it, but has given it an era of great prosperity. It is a curious fact that the nearest approach any Northern troops made to Richmond during the progress of the war was in March, 1864. A precursor to Grant's march through the Wilderness was a dashing cavalry raid from the northward, the troopers crossing the Chickahominy, then unguarded, and advancing to a point about one mile from the city limits. Here they met some resistance, and, learning of defensive works farther ahead, General Kilpatrick, who commanded the raiders, retreated. General Lee's troops were then fifty miles away from Richmond, guarding the lines along the Rappahannock. PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. In the great strategic movements of the opposing armies of the Civil War they repeatedly traversed a large part of Virginia and Maryland to the northwest of the route between Washington and Richmond. Like the general coastal formation east of the Alleghenies, Virginia rises into successive ridges parallel with the mountains. The first range of low broken hills stretching southwest from the Potomac are called in different parts the Kittoctin, Bull Run and other mountains extending down to the Carolina boundary. From these, what is known as the Piedmont district stretches all across the State, and has a width of about twenty-five miles to the base of the Blue Ridge, being a succession of picturesque valleys and rolling lands, the general elevation gradually increasing towards the northwest, where it is bordered by the towering Blue Ridge and its many spurs and plateaus, with passages through at various gaps. The Blue Ridge is elevated about fifteen hundred feet at the Potomac, but Mount Marshall, at Front Royal, rises nearly thirty-four hundred feet, and the Peaks of Otter, farther southwest, are much higher. Beyond this is the great Appalachian Valley, which stretches from New England to Alabama, the section here being known as the "Valley of Virginia," and its northern portion as the Shenandoah Valley. This is a belt of rolling country, with many hills and vales, diversified by streams that wind among the hillsides, and having a varying breadth of ten to fifty miles in different parts.