Another group ‘on pious thoughts intent,’ was bringing quite a selection of anthems to a close with the old hymn of:
‘When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I'll bid farewell to every fear
And wipe my weeping eyes.’
But they invariably forgot at the close of these lines the remainder of both hymn and air. As a consequence they sang at least twenty times with great unction and with great effect these four lines, and as often finished with ‘Jim Along Josey’ or ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.’ At last, rather suspecting that there was a hitch somewhere in the arrangements, and that it must be in the hymn, they concluded to have one more loving drink all round and then to bed,—probably their usual one, poor fellows, upon their Mother Earth.
Rich furniture became, in the streets, the lounging seat or couch of some tatterdemalions whom one would hardly dream were the heroes of yesterday and were to be among the heroes of the morrow. Rich carpets were cut up for blankets, cooking stoves were carried into the streets for convenience in baking some soldier's dinner, but to the eternal honor of soldiers for the first time in possession of a conquered city, neither child nor woman was insulted or treated with aught but chivalrous respect, not even by the most intoxicated soldier of the great force was any home invaded if defended by woman's presence.
In one house the officers found a bureau filled with articles of women's clothing. It was clean and well done up. They put on some of the articles and masqueraded. It was ‘Good evening, Mrs. Smith,’ ‘How do you do this evening, Miss Jones?’
