25th.–This A. M., at 6, weighed anchor, and dropped down to Hampton Roads, and disembarked at what was the little town of Hampton. If there be pleasure in the indulgence of sad reflections, how delightful it would be to have all my friends here, to enjoy them with me to-day. For a few hours, whilst the troops have been disembarking, and transferring the baggage and munitions of war from steamer to transportation wagons, I have been walking the streets of this once beautiful, but now desolate little city. Never before had I a conception of the full import of that word–desolate. Shortly after the battle of Bull Run, the rebels, fearing that we should occupy the town as our winter quarters, abandoned and burned it. This little city, amongst the oldest in America, and now giving evidences of a former beauty, possessed by no other I have seen in the South, they burned!
Oh, the demoralization, the misery resulting from this wicked rebellion. I would like to describe here the scenes I have witnessed this morning; but the sad picture, so strongly impressed on the mind, would be blurred and rendered indistinct by any attempt to transfer it to language. I have already an affection for this little city, and a deep-rooted sympathy for its former citizens, now scattered and hunted, exiled and homeless. Its population, I should judge, was about 2,500. ‘Twas compactly built, mostly of brick. The yards and gardens even yet, give evidence of great taste.
The walls of the old Episcopal Church, said to be the oldest orthodox church on the continent, stand almost uninjured, but not a particle of combustible matter is left about it. In its yard are the tombs and the tomb-stones of a century and a half ago. And what a place to study human nature, amongst the 50,000 soldiers strolling around. ‘Tis low tide. All the tiny bays left uncovered by water, are crowded by soldiers “on all fours,” sunk to knees and elbows in the slimy mud feeling for oysters. The gardens are full of soldiers, the church yards are full, each giving an index of his character by the object of his search and admiration. Whilst I have been looking disgusted and indignant at a squad prying the tomb-stones from the vaults to get a look within; at another squad breaking off pieces of the oldest tomb-stones as ” trophies,” my attention is suddenly drawn away from these revolting scenes by the extacies of a poor, ragged, dirty fellow, over a little yellow violet which he had found. He almost screams with delight. Just beyond him is a better and more intelligent looking soldier scratching among the ashes in hope of finding a shilling, or something else, which he can turn to some use; a few seems impressed by the solemnity of the scene. Such are the varieties of human characters and of human natures. For myself, I cannot but think how worse, even, than Sodom and Gomorrah is the fate of this place. To think, whilst looking over the sad ruins, of the young persons who had grown up here, and whose every hour of happiness was in some way associated with their beautiful homes; of old men who had been born and raised here, and who had known no other home; of widowed mothers, with dependent families, whose homes here constituted their sole wealth on earth. To think of all these clustered together on some elevation in that dark and dreary night, turning to take the last sad look at their dear old homes; oh, what aching hearts there must have been there that night! What envyings of the fate of Lot’s wife, as they were leaving the quiet, happy homes for–God knows where, and God knows what! My heart aches for them, and every feeling of enmity is smothered in one of pity. Before disembarking this morning, we got a look at the famous little Monitor. A raft–an iron raft, about two hundred feet long, lying from eighteen to thirty inches above the water, with its great cheese box on one end, with holes in it to shoot from. Were I to attempt a description I should say, it looked for all the world just like the sole of an immense stoga boot lying flat on the water with the heel sticking up. In the afternoon, left Hampton, marched about four miles in the direction of Newport News, and encamped.