When the retrograde movement of General Johnston's army was at last fairly understood--the supply-trains moving slowly along the roads of Orange, and General Wheeler's cavalry, acting upon the maxim that all that they left behind them was so much aid and comfort to the enemy, taking care to leave at least as few horses and mules as possible--then deluded people, who had all along hugged themselves in the belief that their remoteness was their security, began to shake the dust from their eyes, and open them to admit a view of the possibility of Sherman's army reaching even their secluded homes. The mission of Governors Graham and Swain was not generally understood, even by their near neighbors. That any available attempt to check the ruin and devastation that had hitherto accompanied that army could be made, or was even consistent with honor and our allegiance to the Confederate Government, very few believed. A distinguished Confederate general, standing on our sidewalk, as his division of infantry marched through on Friday, fourteenth, said, in reference to the commissioners, that they were a couple of traitors, and ought to be hung. General Wheeler's cavalry held the village of Chapel Hill until mid-day of April sixteenth, Easter Sunday. Not a house in the place but was thrown open to show them kindness and hospitality. There were rough riders among these troopers--men who, if plunder was the object, would have cared little whether it was got from friend or foe. How much of this disposition to subsist by plunder was due to the West-Point training of their General, it would perhaps be inquiring too curiously to consider. A few such reckless men in a regiment would have been enough to entail an evil name upon the whole; and at the time of which I now speak there were more than a few in General Wheeler's command who were utterly demoralized, lawless, and defiant. Having said this much, because the truth must be told, I will add that of that famous band by far the greater part were true and gallant men. We mingled freely with them, from General Wheeler himself, who slept in the drenching rain among his men, and was idolized by them, to his poorest private, and the impression made by them was altogether in their favor. There were men from every Southern State, and from every walk in life. There were mechanics from Georgia and planters from Alabama: one of the latter I especially remember, who had been a country physician in the north-east corner of the State; a frank and steady, gray-haired man, whose very address inspired confidence, and whose eldest boy rode by his side: there were gay Frenchmen from Louisiana and lawyers from Tennessee, some of whom had graduated at this university in the happy days gone by, who revisited these empty corridors with undisguised sadness, foreboding that not one stone would be left upon another of these venerable buildings, perhaps not an oak left standing of the noble groves, after Sherman's army had passed.