APPENDIX. 109 from the insults and violence of the citizens, and it was notorious that any official attempt to treat the federal captives decently would be universally denounced as soon as it was made public. General Lee himself was insulted in one of the Richmond papers, because his wife had accepted the protection of General McClellan for her household and herself. Let me add that the private testimony of refugees in Richmond was almost unanimous as to the general good conduct of our troops, but this was as carefully suppressed, as was concurrent testimony of the same kind to the damage inflicted upon the country people by their southern “ defenders,” Whatever the issue of the pending struggle may be, we ought to remember that pillage in war is after all simply open robbery. Probably none of us would take any particular pride in calling the attention of his guests to a silver teapot stolen by his grandfather from a farm-house during the invasion of Canada; and we may surely do our posterity the trivial justice to believe that their respect for their ancestorswill not be diminished by any display on our part of self-command, dignity, and reverence for those “ holy bounds ” of which Schiller sings so earnestly in his Wallenstein. Note F.—Page 65. OPENING OF JAMES RIVER. The author speaks of James river as “ opened to the federal navy” by the destruction of the Merrimac. This is perfectly correct; but it may be observed that James river was never closed to the federal navy till the Merrimac had been launched, proved and found far from wanting. The memorable panic occasioned in Richmond in April, 1861, by the news that the “ Pawnee” was coming up the river, might have been supposed likely to point out to our own Government the
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