THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR. I. CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE CITY IN WHICH REBELLION BEGAN. A CHARLESTON, September 4, 1865. CITY of ruins, of desolation, of vacant houses, of widowed women, of rotting wharves, of deserted warehouses, of weed-wild gardens, of miles of grass-grown streets, of acres of pitiful and voiceful barrenness, that is Charleston, wherein Rebellion loftily reared its head five years ago, on whose beautiful promenade the fairest of cultured women gathered with passionate hearts to applaud the assault of ten thousand upon the little garrison of Fort Sumter! "The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding small.” Be sure Charleston knows what these words mean. Be sure the pride of the eyes of these men and women has been laid low. Be sure they have eaten wormwood, and their souls have worn sackcloth. "God's ways seem dark, but soon or late they touch the shining hills of day." Henceforth let us rest content in this faith; for here is enough of woe and want and ruin and ravage to satisfy the most insatiate heart, — enough of sore humiliation and bitter overthrow to appease the desire of the most vengeful spirit. Who kindled the greedy fire of December, 1861, whereby a third of the city was destroyed? No one yet knows. "It was de good Jesus hisself," said an old negro to me when I asked him the question,-"it was de Almighty Hand workin' fru de man's hand." Certain it is that the people were never able to discover the agency of the fire; though, so far as I can learn, no one doubts that it was the work of an incendi 66 ary, some man," say the ex-Rebels, "who wanted to do you Federals a good turn." Recall last winter's daily bulletin about the bombardment, so many shells and no damage done, so many shells and no damage done, — day after day the same old story, till one almost believed it true. Yet ex-Rebel officers will tell you now that our aim was so perfect that we killed their sentinels with our Parrott guns; and go where you will, up and down the streets in almost any portion of the city, and you find the dumb walls eloquent with praises of our skill. We never again can have the Charleston of the decade previous to the war. The beauty and pride of the city are as dead as the glories of Athens. Five millions of dollars could not restore the ruin of these four past years; and that sum is so far beyond the command of the city as to seem the boundless measure of immeasurable wealth. Yet, after all, Charleston was Charleston because of the hearts of its people. St. Michael's Church, they held, was the centre of the universe; and the aristocracy of the city were the very elect of God's children on earth. One marks now how few young men there are, how generally the young women are dressed in black. The flower of their proud aristocracy is buried on scores of battle-fields. If it were possible to restore the broad acres of crumbling ruins to their foretime style and uses, there would even then be but the dead body of Charleston. The Charleston of 1875 will doubtless be proud in wealth and intellect and rich in grace and culture. Let favoring years bring forward such fruitage! Yet the place has not in itself recuperative power for such a result. The material on which to build that fair structure does not here exist, and, |