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sad desolation.
The elegant mansions and familiar thoroughfares, once rejoicing in wealth and refinement and the theatre of busy life — the well-known and fondly-cherished churches, some of them ancient landmarks, where large assemblies were wont to bow at holy altars, and spacious balls that once blazed with light and rang with festal songs, are all deserted, sombre and cheerless; and this is enhanced by the forbidding aspect of that vast district of the city which was laid in ashes three years ago, and which remains in unmolested ruins as the monument of Charleston's long and dreary pause in the grand march of improvement.
Here you perceive her humiliation.
The movements of the army under
Gen. Hood were so rapid at this season that there was but little opportunity to conduct religious services.
While that army lay near
Tuscumbia, Ala.,
Rev. J. B. McFerrin wrote to the
Southern Christian Advocate giving a sad picture of the results of the war to a once rich and beautiful country:
The beautiful Valley of Tennessee is almost a waste.
From Decatur to Tuscumbia there are but few plantations near the main road which have not been desolated.
Many beautiful mansions, with out-houses, cotton-gins, barns, stables, and negro cabins, have been burned.
Churches have been committed to the flames, and old La Grange College is laid in ashes.
You can scarcely imagine the ruin and devastation that everywhere meet the eye. Now the people, once rich and prosperous, have scarcely bread to eat.
What our future movement will be I cannot foretell.
There are various conjectures; some guess one point and some another; all are in good spirits and hope for some grand result from this extraordinary campaign of Gen. Hood.
Time will prove the wisdom of the move; or, if a failure, no one doubts that it is a bold and extraordinary measure to check the enemy.
Such has been the rapidity of our marches that we have had scarcely any
