Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 10.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

Standing, then, in the drowning summer's storm, we beheld the evidence so plain before our eyes of the sacked and ruined Chantilly; that sweet, lovely place which, for nearly a century, had been famous for all that makes a home prized and loved, and an estate cared for and valued.

The fences were all levelled, the out-buildings were demolished, the splendid park cut down — every shade tree was felled by the axe, even the fruit trees were hacked down out of mere wantoness. As for the house, it was hardly habitable, the furniture was smashed to kindling wood, the windows dashed to pieces with the butt-end of the muskets, the plastering from the walls knocked off, and the rooms so defaced and defiled that it discounted a hog pen in filth. In this space lay many wounded and dead, among others General Phil. Kearny, the most brilliant, chivalrous, dashing officer in the Yankee army. His body was sent by order of General Lee to the Yankee lines under a flag of truce. He was killed in a charge, and rode in the advance with his hat in the air and the bridle held in his teeth, for he had but one arm, the other he lost in the Mexican war. He was a brave ideal of a soldier. Most of our soldiers viewed his dead body.

In the wet, showery, drowning rain, we had to spend the night. There was but little distance between the two armies-one flushed with victory, the other sullen from defeat, but both at this moment equally limp, wet, hungry and miserable. But for the pouring rain-drops, the sharp Halt! and challenge of the enemy's pickets could easily have been heard.

From camp to camp, from the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whisper of each other's watch.

It is said by those fishermen who ought to know what they are talking about, that eels at length learn how to get used to being skinned, and after awhile rather enjoy the operation. So it is that by continuous hardening soldiers learn to sleep in a drowning storm, in a mud puddle as sweetly as a citizen comfortably tucked away in his bed of down. They sleep in a rain that, were they not enured and seasoned, would make every man ill from the exposure.

Next morning we awoke so stiff and rigid that it took us some time to straighten our limbs. Our bodies were chilled through, but to our great delight the sun's warm beams darted through the rift in the