[Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.]
the Great fire — Calhoun's grave — important movements, &c., &c.
Charleston, S. C., Jan. 25, 1862.
To a stranger the vast ruins to which a portion of Charleston has been reduced is truly appalling.
Such heaps of brick I have never before looked upon.
Here and there are a few negroes at work among the ruins clearing away the brick as if looking for some valuable which have been buried beneath the prostrate walls.
I have had the privilege of looking upon John C. Calhoun's grave, upon which there was a beautiful bunch of flowers, and was told that every day since the great statesman made that his final resting-place, an old servant has visited his grave, and placed upon it fresh flowers. While that old man's life lasts, the grave of his master shall not want for tender care.
Rev. A. H. Tupper, who has been acting as Chaplain at Manassas for seven months, has returned to this city, and is now attending to the spiritual wants of the city hospitals. Rev. J. P. Boyce, D. D., is also here as Chaplain of the Greenville regiment.--These two gentlemen are among the most wealthy clergymen in the South, and I am happy to say they are very unlike the few miserly rich preachers here and there through the land, who never preach against covetousness for fear that some one may point to the pulpit and say,
‘ "Thou art the man!"
’ I visited an institution of learning in this State, a few days since, towards which one of the chaplains, whose name I've given you, gave some $30,000. The next day I was at Columbia and looked upon a beautiful church edifice, towards the building of which he paid $10,000, and yesterday I visited the spacious and elegant new building of the Citadel Square Baptist Church, in this city, towards which this same clergyman and his family gave $35,000. It is refreshing to see such Chaplains as Boyce and Tupper in the Confederate Army.
There is no apprehension of an attack here. I understand that many who left here at the fall of Port Royal, and fled to the mountains, are now returning.
