There is not a prettier village in the South than that which lies around the University, and has grown up with it and has been sustained and elevated by it. And not a village in the South gave more freely of its best blood in the war, not one suffered more severely in proportion to its population. Thirty-five of our young men died in the service. Some of them left wives and little ones; some were the only support and blessing of aged parents; all were, with very few exceptions, the very flower of our families, and were representatives of every walk and condition of life. The first company that left the place in May, 1861, commanded by Captain R.J. Ashe, was attached to the famous First North-Carolina regiment, which so distinguished itself at the memorable battle of Bethel, June tenth of that year. Upon the disbanding of this regiment, the members of the Orange Light Infantry attached themselves to other companies--for no fewer than four were raised here and in the vicinity--and many of them were among those who dragged themselves home on foot from Lee's last field. The decline of the University threw many of our citizens out of employment, and the privations endured here tell as sad a story as can be met with anywhere. There was some alleviation of the general distress for those who had houses or furniture to rent; for every vacant room was crowded at one time by refugee families from the eastern part of the State, from Norfolk, and latterly from Petersburg. And this was the case with every town in the interior of the State. Some of these settled here permanently during the war, attracted by the beauty and secluded quiet of the place, and by the libraries--best society of all! Some of them merely alighted here in the first hurry of their flight, and afterward sought other homes, as birds flit uneasily from bough to bough when driven from their nests. These families were generally representatives of the best and most highly cultivated of our Southern aristocracy. They fled hither stripped of all their earthly possessions, except a few of their negroes. Many came not only having left their beautiful homes in the hands of invaders, but with heads bowed down with mourning; for gallant sons who had fallen in vain defense of those homes. Some of them, the elders among them, closed their wearied eyes here, and were laid to rest among strangers, glad to die and exchange their uncertain citizenship in a torn and distracted country for that city which hath foundations.