New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-03-28
Correspondence of the Crescent
LETTER FROM RICHMOND,

a.4.5s RICHMOND, March 20, 1866.
II Memorable days return. March winds are
rushing through ruined avenues and over grea
heaps and hollows of debris that year ago, moi
j even despair dared picture, even in dream. Bu
many of the black and totterng walls which We
4 looked upon SO long and sadly last summer have
disappeared, and elegant, expensive, and some
times magnificent structures now relieve the waste
4 ofruns. For many months after its occupation
Richmond was golden city in the prospective
i visions of northern capitalists, and they were
quick to aid the property holders in the work OF
restoration. Lesser Adventures sounded their
| limited wealth upon the immediate speculations
the locality and its necessities invited. The latter
i reaped harvest for time; the former have as
! yet reaped nothing. Times have changed since
| the day of Richmond's doom, and it would seem
that there is still another doomsday impending for
it. Harmony is persstently repealed, conf
dence is absent from the halls of Congress, the
State, in a hurry to be amiable, has made some
laws for the benefit of Baltimore, and none for the
benefit of her own metropolis the crops of last
year are exhausted, the prospects for the present
are bad, the, producers have no money, the con-
sumers but little, and so the "late Confederate
capital, involved in the miseres and disabilities
of the State at large, is comprised about by an
army of misfortunes, clad in deeper cerulean and
with diver purpose to destroy, than that which
threatened it under Grant. t-....
Some of the splendid new buildings, on which
the most extrayagant visions have been layished,
loom up against the neighboring vacancy like
affairs whose deyotees are dead. They look as if
they commemorated something, and that is all,
for they are as tenantless and as silent and huge
as monuments. But there are some palatial
structures brimful of the ever various pabuum of
trade. There is splendid establishment on Main
street, which was opened on grand scale three
months ago, and yesterday the propretors gave
deed of trust on their property for the sum of
$4,000. There is a magnificent store little
above, owned by men who are rich, daring, and
evidently desperate. The dry goods brotherhood
have been trying to save themselves under the
recent tremendous declines, But throughout all
departments of trade wherein speculation went
not with extreme penurious caution, there is dis
comfture now, and some ruin for the future.
Pretty children look at their fathers palaces of
brick and brown-stone, iron and crystal sweet.
heart maidens, triumphng in fashion and the fact
that their good papas have been pardoned,
!. under the twenty thousand dollar clause" gaze
upon them with pride and joyful hope; fast |
and wealth. But the old men are |
trembling; and as they go along the streets there
3 the grin of grim poverty on their faces, and
heir hearts are breaking with pain that the
weet maidens, and the fairy children and the fast
'oung men have never dreamed of yet We're
his city of the desert, demolished, or threat
ned with destruction, and all but the innocent
nd thoughtless knew of its approach the ghostly
yidences of dependency could not be more
,arked than now. ;!,S @yg.fa,f VI. ,sa
have given these hasty gmpses of the COM
iercial condition of Richmond, to inform your
eaders of its status in that particular, as becom-
ig preface to more familiar gossip. Maybe, I
ometimes, a warrior son of Louisiana wanders
ackin fancy to the picturesque hills and shady {
treets Of Richmond, its haunts of joy and social
eunions, the homes of its hospitality and the tenn
es q us worshippers. will start the dalliant =
aea onits travels again. The old Louisiana hos. {
'1ai-the baptist College standing off upon the
western suburbs Of the city is as quiet as church.
nll vacant and the fields about it are fenceles IS
nd overgrown, the resort of the rabbit and the II
arm me baplst institute, on Eleventh street. lila
Tue neart OF the city, once the officers hospital
now the headquarters Of the district com. r
handler, General Turner, and the mansion 90 the II
Confederate President, on the brow Of shoceo y
III, is the headquarters and residence Of the de.
artment commander, Gen. A. H. Terry. !.
The stars and stripes float over the spot where n
lie Confederate signal corps waved its last Gag 4
nd swung its last lamp north of the James. The g
ID Louisiana Home has given way to grocery B
ore and an express office. The various "homes', O
nd "depots of the different States have come to q
milar uses There are still patients in the Con- +
-.A- a. .rg