From the New York Times, 5/1/1865, p. 8

FROM RICHMOND.

Gen. Halleck’s Recent Important Order – Its Effects – Restored Confidence – Justice to the South – Expense of Living – Value of Real Estate in Richmond – Scarcity of Wood – Jeff Davis and His Plunder – The Libby and Castle Thunder.

From Our Own Correspondent.

RICHMOND, Va., Thursday, April 27, 1865.

Major-Gen. HALLECK’S recent order, opening up the ports of Virginia and unloosing the reins from commerce, has acted already on this community like a beneficent Summer shower upon parched vegetation. What gave that order more joyful significance was the fact that it was distinctly announced as given by command of the President himself.

Up to that time the utmost consternation and doubt existed as to what might be the future policy of our new President, some fearing that, looking upon the Southern people as, in some way or other, the instigators of the accursed deed which placed him in the position of Chief Magistrate, he would issue orders so binding and oppressive as to leave them all down here to the utter ruin in which they are involved. Men from the North who, up to the moment of Mr.  LINCOLN’S assassination, had fully made up their minds to remain here and invest money in trade, immediately on its occurrence took fright, and were on the eve of flying off with their capital as from a place infested with the plague. Now all this, by wise and generous legislation, is again changed in a single moment. Confidence is restored, and people begin to feel that whatever just severity our President may be inclined to mete out to the infernal authors of all our troubles, his enmity extends not to the commerce and well-being of the masses.

It is to be earnestly prayed that the whole Northern mind will take its tone from that not manifested by our good resident, and not shower indiscriminate blame and suspicion upon those who – whatever their former criminality in rebellion may have been – have really no more sympathy or collusion with the atrocious act of BOOTH than the most loyal man in the Northern States. No greater horror could have been felt at the North than was manifested here by every decent person with whom I came in contact. Rev. Dr. J. L. BURROWS, of the First Baptist Church, eloquently alluded to this subject in his admirable sermon last Sunday, and put the South in its true and fair light, when he said:

“It has been said that the South should be held responsible for the assassination of President LINCOLN, and that severer measures should be adopted toward the people because of this crime. His would be visiting upon the innocent the sins of the guilty. This would be, in its turn, an injustice and a crime. To hold a whole population responsible for an outrage which they not only disown, but deplore and abhor, might be the first impulse of blind and phrenzied passion, but cannot become a principle of action with fair-minded and magnanimous men. Let the guilty suffer. Let those who were accessory to a deed so infernal, either in its conception or execution, meet the just penalty of the law; but in the name of justice, and fairness and humanity, let not maddened passion seek for victims among those who are as guiltless of such a crime as the closest personal friends of the murdered President. In the name of the South, I protest, with all the earnestness of which my nature is capable, against being involved in the remotest degree in an atrocity from which my whole soul revolts, and which can awaken no utterance of more honest and indignant condemnation in any section of the county, than in these Southern States.”

There is not a Northern man, of unbiased mind and ordinary sense, who has held any communion with the people here, but will heartily indorse every word of that honest and earnest appeal. Few people in the North can, without minutely studying the minds of emn down here, imagine how little of real sympathy existed among them for the infernal leaders and abettors of this rebellion, and how vast a power the latter were enabled to wield over the bodies and souls of their fellow-citizens. Said a highly intelligent citizen of Richmond to me yesterday: “The never was a time when, if all bayonets and force had been safely removed, secession could have enrolled 200 followers.” “Before the war, you mean,” I answered, somewhat astonished. “No, sir;” was his emphatic reply; “I mean any time during the past four years.” People naturally ask: How came it then, that these wretches could organize great armies in the field, and hold them so long against the power of the United States? Who has not seen one of those tremendous and well-constructed machines, by which the delicate hand of a child, by merely touching some spring or lever, can set in motion a power so vast as to rend solid masses of iron with the ease of a pair of scissors cutting cambric. Such was the potent machinery of secession and rebellion, invented by CALHOUN, and maturing from his day down to the present hour.

The expense of living, instead of diminishing appears to be on the increase, and really for no ostensible reason, as our markets are abundantly supplied with all the necessities of life. It is a matter that will doubtless be soon rectified; for neither Gen. HALLECK or Gen. ORD, in the humane and magnanimous treatment of this people, upon which they are both evidently determined, are going to leave them at the mercy of sharpers and speculators in the necessaries of life. I hear people complaining daily that many necessary articles are actually dearer than they were in Confederate times. Take, for instance, the one article of corn meal, which sells to-day for three dollars a bushel. In Confederate times one hundred dollars of their currency would buy a bushel of it. But in those days sixty Confederate dollars could buy one dollar in gold. It therefore follows that corn meal is being sold to-day for what was equivalent to one hundred and eighty dollars in Confederate money, or an advanced price of eighty dollars per bushel, and other things have raised in the same ratio. It is quite evident that the military authorities will have to pass some law prohibiting extortion, by fixing the maximum price upon all articles of food.

If Northern people imagine that Richmond is burnt up and played out, here is a little item to teach the capitalists the contrary. On Tuesday, a narrow lot of ground on Main-street, opposite the Spotswood House, only twenty-six feet front by about one hundred and twenty feet deep, was sold, at public auction, on a twenty years’ lease, for $750 per annum, in gold; the lessee to pay all taxes, and to erect on the spot a building not less than two stories in height. At the end of the twenty years, the lease is to revert to the owner of the land, with all its improvements; he paying for the latter according to the ordinary rules of arbitration. Although I was confidently assured that the same piece of ground could not before the war have fetched one-third of the sum now given for it, many thought it an excellent bargain, and I have no doubt the purchaser (a Baltimore capitalist) could sell out to-day at a premium.

Wood still continues very scarce among us, owing to the hideous ravages of war all around the wooded districts of Richmond and Petersburgh. I yesterday saw Lieut. MERRILL, our active Assistant Quartermaster, who had just been on a hunt, some 12 miles from this city, and succeeded in finding 3,000 cords of Confederate Government wood, upon which he immediately laid hands, and is having it conveyed here for use in the city. It is lucky, indeed, that Summer instead of Winter is coming upon us, or public suffering – from this one cause alone – would be very lamentable.

Every one here is literally staggered by this last extraordinary act of Gen. SHERMAN. The most vexatious part to the people of this section is the fact of his negotiations allowing JEFF. DAVIS and his crew to escape with their ill-gotten plunder; all dragged from the bones and sinews of poor bleeding Virginia. It is well known that JEFF. DAVIS & CO. took with them not less than eight millions in gold, which they had, for months past, been gradually collection, ostensibly for buying up their paper currency, but in reality to feather the nests of the rascals in their life-long exile. All this treasure was sent out of Richmond full three days before evacuation, toward Charlotte, N. C., and under the care of the notorious chief detective, SAM. McCUBBIN, the brother, I am told, of an eminent physician in Baltimore.

I yesterday visited the Libby Prison, as well as Castle Thunder. The rebel prisoners are all taken away, either paroled or sent to the Northern prisons. The few remaining ones are all penitentiary birds, who escaped during the hubbub of our occupation, but who have been once more re-caged for the benefit of society at large. One prisoner I saw there, in a separate cell, pacing up and down his enclosure like an imprisoned hyena. It was the notorious DICK TURNER, the jailor of the Libby, against whose infernal cruelty our poor soldiers had so often complained, and who seems to be reserved for some especial attention from the hands of the Government.

J. R. HAMILTON.

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