From Charlottesville.
the hospitals — the University — military instruction, &c.
Charlottesville, Oct. 2d, 1861.
I arrived here yesterday, and thinking you might like to hear from so important a place, I hasten to give you my impressions.
The country around here is extremely lovely, and woods and fields look fairer than usually at this season.
The town is improving rapidly, many new houses are going up in Main street; handsome cottages rise on the outskirts, and the whole bears a well-to-do progressing air, as if the war had as yet done this great harm here.
Two excellent hotels are filled to overflowing mainly with refugees from the threatened portions of the State, and some of the larger houses have been taken for hospitals.
One of them is a fever hospital, under the excellent management of Dr. Davis.
A little way out of town lies a torture-looking building, called the Delavan House, filled with sick soldiers, under charge of Dr. Allen, another Professor of the University.
Around it men are busy erecting large hospital-houses.
They look nice enough, airy, and scrupulously clean; but they are so crowded together, that the emanations must soon become injurious to the patients.
They are built of the very slightest material, simple uprights, without any braces whatsoever, and covered with planks.
The latter will warp, let the rain through, and will hardly withstand a heavy snow-fall.
The floor, also of single planks, is a few feet above the cold clay soil, and it is evident that no amount of fuel will ever be able to produce the proper temperature.--It is said that these slides will, when completed, accommodate a thousand patients.
(I met here the Medical Director, Dr. Cabell, a third Professor of the University, and found in the stately, gray haired old gentleman, dressed in a curious blue flannel shirt,) a most courteous and well-informed surgeon.
At the University there was to my very great surprise, not a trace left of the hundreds of wounded men who had here received so generous welcome and so successful a treatment, L rooms and dormitories had all been carried out, the last sick man had been moved out weeks ago, and all was in readiness for the denouncement of studies.
There were students here, as yet; I heard of about thirty, but more were coming in every day. Only two of the Professors, I learned, have left--Mr. Bledsoe, who is employed in the War Department at Richmond, and Mr. Coleman, who has raised a company of artillery.
Lectures were to begin, as usually, and the Professors expressed their determination to stand by the institution and to see to it, as far as in them lay, that the interests of education are not entirely swallowed up by the eagerness for fighting in the young men of the State.
They will provide, I am told, for military instruction of the best kind, and thus enable those who desire to spend the winter in something better than the forced inactivity of camp , to prepare themselves thoroughly for entering the army next summer.
Around the University are many beautiful country houses, in some of which boarders are taken in lieu of the usual complement of students, and where already many families have found a pleasant and economical refuge from the dangers of the border or the turmoil of the Capital.
As I shall be stationed her for some time, I may, if acceptable to you, give your readers occasional glimpses of this fair and interesting region. 