e work thus begun, continued,--gathering in force and fury as the day
wore on. Police stations, enrolling-offices, rooms or buildings used in
any way by government authority, or obnoxious as representing the
dignity of law, were gutted, destroyed, then left to the mercy of the
flames. Newspaper offices, whose issues had been a fire in the rear of
the nation's armies by extenuating and defending treason, and through
violent and incendiary appeals stirring up "lewd fellows of the baser
sort" to this very carnival of ruin and blood, were cheered as the crowd
went by. Those that had been faithful to loyalty and law were hooted,
stoned, and even stormed by the army of miscreants who were only driven
off by the gallant and determined charge of the police, and in one place
by the equally gallant, and certainly unique defence, which came from
turning the boiling water from the engines upon the howling wretches,
who, unprepared for any such warm reception as this, beat a precipitate
and general retreat. Before night fell it was no longer one vast crowd
collected in a single section, but great numbers of gatherings,
scattered over the whole length and breadth of the city,--some of them
engaged in actual work of demolition and ruin; others with clubs and
weapons in their hands, prowling round apparently with no definite
atrocity to perpetrate, but ready for any iniquity that might
offer,--and, by way of pastime, chasing every stray police officer, or
solitary soldier, or inoffensive negro, who crossed the line of their
vision; these three objects--the badge of a defender of the law,--the
uniform of the Union army,--the skin of a helpless and outraged
race--acted upon these madmen as water acts upon a rabid dog.

Late in the afternoon a crowd which could have numbered not less than
ten thousand, the majority of whom were ragged, frowzy, drunken women,
gathered about the Orphan Asylum for Colored Children,--a large and
beautiful building, and one of the most admirable and noble charities of
the city. When it became evident, from the menacing cries and groans of
the multitude, that danger, if not destruction, was meditated to the
harmless and inoffensive inmates, a flag of truce appeared, and an
appeal was made in their behalf, by the principal, to every sentiment of
humanity which these beings might possess,--a vain appeal! Whatever
human feeling had ever, if ever, filled these souls was utterly drowned
and washed away in the tide of