Wilmington journal., 1867-01-24
"The merry dance deligh US not.
As III tkat better time,
When oft IN happy bands we met,
With spirits Ike our cline"
WILLIAM GII.TOEE SIMH

The siege and defence Of our great cities
were among the most striking and impress
sive events Of the war. How can we say
enough about the thrilling incidents which
pertain to the story of RICHMOND, and
which are almost as romantic as the stories
that we read of in the books of the Crusades
and Of ChivalTy. Her maidens stripped
themselves of their jewels, and her matrons
of their plate, when the Confederate Golfers
were at their ebb and in every mansion,
us in every modest dwelling, her devoted
women tended the sick and soOthed the
sOTrow of the dying. We resided portion
of the war in her midst, and made frequent
visits to her afterwards, and never could
sufficiently extol the spirit and devotion
which were found in the same degree no.
where else. Wrapped in flames in the clos
in| hour Of the war, she became but Il
hideous wreck of what Richmond had
been.
The fate OF Wilmington followed close
upon that of Fort Fisher, which coMstitu-
ted her defence, but not without fierce
and bloody encounter, and not llntil for
long years she had furnished hy her ship
ping. which deticd the blockade, inestima-
bic supplies to the exhausted COnfederacy.
CharleSton--there She stood, piteously
rained upon for nearly two years by shot
and shell, charred and crumbling ruin,
proudly erect and defiant. No suppliant
voice was heard. She had braved the lion
and was not appalled, by his roar. Mother
of the revolution, she never disgraced her
progeny. As battery after battery fell that
had guarded her approaches, new and stron-
ger ones were reared within. Grimly look
ing over the bay and over the ruined city
sat Sumter, a new Gibraltar, guarded by
devoted men under Rhett or Elliot, who,
like the Spartans, literally fought under the
shadow of the missiles of death which
shrouded the sun. The world marveled
that amid those ruins foothold could still
be had but such was found, and the for
tress which was wrested from the enemy by
blows, refused to return until blows be-
came OF no avail The city's doom had
been settled in battle-felds far away.
We visited Charleston in those stirring
days. An accidental fire had swept the
abodes of her grand old historic per-
sonages, and the shot and shell OF the foe
had crushed and battered down her splen-
did business quarters, her warehouses and
her quays. Frowning cannon looked out
from behind embrasnres in her beautiful
East Bay battery the paving stones Of her
streets had been removed for breastworks,
and in the vast domain which stretched
from what is called Calhoun street to the
battery, no inhabitant was to have been J;
houses we're closed and deserted, or rather
brokenthrougha and wrecked; nothing visible
but an occasional soldier ornegro, whilst the
angry bolts fell thick and fast. What re-
ioicing throughout all the land of the foe as
the unheral lded ministers of death crushed
in upon the devoted city, whilst yet its peo-
pie reposed in confident security. The
idea was expressed by one of their favorite
poets :
cit comes like the thief iu the gloamng,
1t comes all none may foretell
The place OF the coming-the glaring
They live in sleepless spell
That wizens, and withers, end whitens;
1t ages the young, and the bloom
OF the maiden in ashes OF roses
The swamp angel broods in his gloom.
Who woeps for the woeful city.
Let him weep for our guilty kind"
Vainly she calls upon Michael,
(Ihe white mans seraph Was he y
For Michael has fed from his tower,
TO the angels over the sea-"
In the darkest hour it was written by one
of her sons &c Let the vandal work pro-
ceed. The bells of st. Michael shall yet
ring out merry peals for independence, and
the stately mansions of those who claim
the blood of the Rutleges, Middletons and
Pinkneys, shall hang out blazing lights
from the base to attic in honor of the geat
event" "The viper bites against