the characteristic features only from the accounts I received, partly from
Unionists who were then living in the south, partly from persons that had
participated in the rebellion. When the news of Lee's and Johnston's
surrenders burst upon the southern country the general consternation was
extreme. People held their breath, indulging in the wildest apprehensions
as to what was now to come. Men who had occupied positions under the
confederate government, or were otherwise compromised in the rebellion,
run before the federal columns as they advanced and spread out to occupy
the country, from village to village, from plantation to plantation,
hardly knowing whether they wanted to escape or not. Others remained at
their homes yielding themselves up to their fate. Prominent Unionists told
me that persons who for four years had scorned to recognize them on the
street approached them with smiling faces and both hands extended. Men of
standing in the political world expressed serious doubts as to whether the
rebel States would ever again occupy their position as States in the
Union, or be governed as conquered provinces. The public mind was so
despondent that if readmission at some future time under whatever
conditions had been promised, it would then have been looked upon as a
favor. The most uncompromising rebels prepared for leaving the country.
The masses remained in a state of fearful expectancy.

This applies especially to those parts of the country which were within
immediate reach of our armies or had previously been touched by the war.
Where Union soldiers had never been seen and none were near, people were
at first hardly aware of the magnitude of the catastrophe, and strove to
continue in their old ways of living.

Such was, according to the accounts I received, the character of that
first period. The worst apprehensions were gradually relieved as day after
day went by without bringing the disasters and inflictions which had been