Friends and relatives who were living in Richmond then have told me about their experiences until I seem to have shared them. One who appears in these pages as Matoaca, gives me this little word-picture of the morning after the evacuation: "I went early to the War Department, where I had been employed, to get letters out of my desk. The desk was open. Everything was open. Our President, our Government, our soldiers were gone. The papers were found and I started homeward. We saw rolls of smoke ahead, and trod carefully the fiery streets. Suddenly my companion caught my arm, crying: 'Is not that the sound of cavalry?' We hurried, almost running. Soon after we entered the house, some one exclaimed: "'God help us! The United States flag is flying over our Capitol!' "I laid my head on Uncle Randolph's knee and shivered. He placed his hand lightly on my head and said: 'Trust in God, my child. They can not be cruel to us. We are defenseless.' He had fought for that flag in Mexico. He had stood by Virginia, but he had always been a Unionist. I thought of New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia." An impression obtained that to negro troops was assigned the honor of first entering Richmond, hauling down the Southern Cross and hoisting in its place the Stars and Stripes. "Harper's Weekly" said: "It was fitting that the old flag should be restored by soldiers of the race to secure whose eternal degradation that flag had been pulled down." Whether the assignment was made or not, I am unable to say; if it was, it was not very graceful or wise on the part of our conquerors, and had it been carried out, would have been prophetic of what came after--the subversion. White troops first entered Richmond, and a white man ran up the flag of the Union over our Capitol. General Shepley says that to his aide, Lieutenant de Peyster, he accorded the privilege as a reward for caring for his old flag that had floated over City Hall in New Orleans. On the other hand, it is asserted that Major Stevens performed the historic office, running up the two small guidons of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, which were presently displaced by the large flag Lieutenant de Peyster had been carrying in the holster at his saddle-bow for many a day, that it might be in readiness for the use to which he now put it. THE ARMY OF THE UNION CHAPTER III THE ARMY OF THE UNION: THE CHILDREN AND THE FLAG The Army of the Union entered Richmond with almost the solemnity of a processional entering church. It was occasion for solemn procession, that entrance into our burning city where a stricken people, flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone, watched in terror for their coming. Our broken-hearted people closed their windows and doors and shut out as far as they could all sights and sounds. Yet through closed lattice there came that night to those living near Military Headquarters echoes of rejoicings.