an inexpressible forlornness resulting from the devastations of war and
its occupation by both armies alternately. Yet there would be a less
striking contrast between Southern and New-England villages, if the
former were as much in the habit of using white paint as we are. It is
prodigiously efficacious in putting a bright face upon a bad matter.

There was one small shop, which appeared to have nothing for sale. A
single man and one or two boys were all the inhabitants in view, except
the Yankee sentinels and soldiers, belonging to Massachusetts
regiments, who were scattered about pretty numerously. A guard-house
stood on the slope of the hill; and in the level street at its base
were the offices of the Provost-Marshal and other military authorities,
to whom we forthwith reported ourselves. The Provost-Marshal kindly
sent a corporal to guide us to the little building which John Brown
seized upon as his fortress, and which, after it was stormed by the
United States marines, became his temporary prison. It is an old
engine-house, rusty and shabby, like every other work of man's hands in
this God-forsaken town, and stands fronting upon the river, only a
short distance from the bank, nearly at the point where the
pontoon-bridge touches the Virginia shore. In its front wall, on each
side of the door, are two or three ragged loop-holes which John Brown
perforated for his defence, knocking out merely a brick or two, so as
to give himself and his garrison a sight over their rifles. Through
these orifices the sturdy old man dealt a good deal of deadly mischief
among his assailants, until they broke down the door by thrusting
against it with a ladder, and tumbled headlong in upon him. I shall not
pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy
with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect
ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose
happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that