Occasionally, a rare regiment, in perfect
order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves,) marching
in silence, with lowering faces, stern, weary to sinking, all black
and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive; but
these are the exceptions. Sidewalks of Pennsylvania avenue, Fourteenth
street, &c., crowded, jamm'd with citizens, darkies, clerks,
everybody, lookers-on; women in the windows, curious expressions from
faces, as those swarms of dirt-cover'd return'd soldiers there (will
they never end?) move by; but nothing said, no comments; (half our
lookers-on secesh of the most venomous kind--they say nothing; but the
devil snickers in their faces.) During the forenoon Washington gets
all over motley with these defeated soldiers--queer-looking objects,
strange eyes and faces, drench'd (the steady rain drizzles on all
day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blister'd in the feet. Good
people (but not over-many of them either,) hurry up something for
their grub. They put wash-kettles on the fire, for soup, for coffee.
They set tables on the side-walks--wagon-loads of bread are purchas'd,
swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the
first in the city for culture and charm, they stand with store of
eating and drink at an improvis'd table of rough plank, and give food,
and have the store replenished from their house every half-hour
all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, silent,
white-hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their
cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole time.
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