The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 9: Poetry and Eloquence.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

‘His trade destroyed’—illustrations for Grady's words

Southern express office, Richmond	Mill on James river and Kanawha canal	Gallego flour mills, James river
Gallego flour mills from the canal	The Richmond and Petersburg railroad station	Remains of cars near the station

These few glimpses of ruined industries in the single Southern city of Richmond prove how discouraging a reality confronted the Confederate soldier on his return home. Even the words of the orator Grady are faint in comparison with the almost hopeless future that lay before his people in 1865. All their movable capital was exhausted. The banks had failed. The State and Confederate bonds were worthless. The railroads were ruined; the cities disconsolate; the labor system revolutionized. But, as Henry Watterson says, the South “was poor and in bondage; she was set free, and she had to go to work; she went to work, and she is richer than ever before.”