Throughout the winter of 1862-3, and the next spring, the current of life in the community, with its mingled civil and military elements, flowed on in wonted channels. The occupancy of the town by Confederate troops and the conduct of their affairs made the most prominent and engrossing feature on the face of things. There were soldiers on the streets, and sick or dying soldiers in the hospitals. Courts martial were held, and stories, true or false, of military movements and skirmishes, of battles, victories and defeats, were frequent topics of conversation. Men bought and sold, Confederate notes and bonds went down in value, and gold went up. Purchases of different commodities in trade and of real estate, were made in sums of money, nominally large and really small. Some men seemed to prosper in their financial operations, in like manner with the speculator, of whom an admiring friend said, “He is rich--that is to say, he is not rich, but he has all the sensations.” But there was no firm foundation in pecuniary affairs and many of the superstructures were chaffy. In general, things appeared to be permanently settled. There was so much of ordinary routine in their daily movement, so little of jarring or eruption about it, that men, if disposed, might easily think that the Government under which they lived had a long, indefinite future before it. To some observers, however, the uniformity in the movement, like that in the soldiers’ dress and march, had too much the look of being imposed by mere power and of wanting in healthy freedom. After all that might be said favorably of the social condition, one had to admit that it was too dull and monotonous to suit rational beings, and needed an infusion of vitality from some source or other. To observers whose spirits revolted against their surroundings, and were fed with the hope that “Springs eternal in the human breast,” the state of society suggested its comparison to that of the inhabitants of a remote locality in a great empire, where insurrectionists temporarily held power and things went on among the people under a prevailing sense of suppression. They were compelled to silence but were still resistful of mind to the power that held them down. They had faith that the surrounding night would sooner or later disappear before the light of day, bringing “Stern and imperious Nemesis, Daughter of Justice, most severe; * * * * * Whose swift, sure hand is ever near.”