The loss to the county was enormous. Although many old and well-built mills, and barns of brick or stone were not destroyed, as is conclusively proven by their survival to this day, and the devastation did not equal that in the Valley,[178] yet how great was the aggregate damage is suggested by a report submitted to the second session of the Fifty-first Congress (1890-91) in which sworn claims of adherents to the Union alone amounted to $199,228.24 for property burned and to an additional $61,821.13 for live stock taken; the report adding that there had been no estimate of the losses sustained by those whose sympathies were with the Confederates.[179] That the total loss to the people of the County, as a result of Sheridan's order, was over a million dollars well may be believed--and this in a community which had been raided and robbed and levied upon by both armies, as well as many outlaw bands for over three years of warfare! The privations and suffering of the following winter and spring can but be imagined. It may be noted that a Federal Brigade, under General Deven, established its headquarters at Lovettsville about Christmas time and that, although his soldiers patrolled all parts of Loudoun during that winter, yet in spite of all the war-time strain and hatreds, their relations with the people of the county were far better than usually prevailed. [178] _Comanches_, 356. [179] House Report No. 3859. "The year 1864 closed with a gloomy outlook for the Confederacy" writes Williamson and adds that "the winter in Virginia was very severe and the ground was covered with snow and sleet for the better part of the season." About all the comfort Loudoun had was in the repeated rumours of peace to which the people eagerly listened and repeated one to another. And so the bitter winter passed and in the spring came Appomattox. CHAPTER XVI RECOVERY