I am until I undertake to touch upon these themes. Surely the feeling of utter helplessness is the worst feeling in the world. May 5.-Home again! But, ah! how changed a home! All but God is changing day by day. Changed are we, and changed our home, in everything but loving hearts. We are all here; nobody killed in battle; nobody dead from disease. Have we not something, after all, to be thankful for? Now Johnny must go to college and exchange the arts of war for the arts of peace. Judge Aldrich took charge of me from Newberry. We came as far as Alston on the train, but the railroad being destroyed thence, we hired an old ambulance, which, although in a state of chronic dilapidation, luckily held together for the trip. We entered the city from the Main street road, our way being marked with desolation and ruin on all sides. One solitary house is all that is left upon that whole street above the State House. Turning out of that street, we lost our bearings in the surrounding mass of brick and ashes. There are few landmarks left in the heart of the city to enable the wayfarer to distinguish one locality from another. It is all so strange, so sad, so hard to realize. "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How has she became as a widow!" The relief to my overwrought feelings as we drove through the silent streets was in a woman's refuge tears; my companion's in a man's-silence. We said little to each other; we only drew long, deep, sighing breaths of pain. War has no pity, yet, oh! the pity of it! Thus we reached home. Old mammy was the first to see, the first to greet me. "Lawd! Lawd! young missis, dem Yankees ain't kill ye, sure enough!" "No," said I; "they must catch before they kill.” "Bless Gawd fer dat! But I hope yer fetched yer rashuns wid yer." "No," I was obliged to admit, "I only brought an appetite, and, I regret to state, a very good one." “Den Lawd hab mercy on yer!" she remarked, "fer de blackberries, dey ain't got ripe yit." And old Nancy shook her head mournfully. As to my dear mother, she is so happy in my safe return that she scarcely reverts to our hardships. We still have each other. We two, and old mammy, are the only ones at home at present, the gentlemen of the family having gone up to the Broad River section in a wagon, in the hope of being able to procure some provisions. It is next door to starvation with us, and no mistake. Each day we send to headquarters for a little bacon and some meal, and that is what we live on, if it may be called living. It is true, we have a little sugar, and a small quantity of real tea a dear old lady gave me in Newberry, but the sugar was buried while the Federal army was here, and in consequence is infested with those pestiferous little creatures who never fail to make the best of their opportunities. Now, some who may chance to read these lines might say that they couldn't go ant-tea. But I go it! It is much better than no tea at all. Moreover, I manage it after a way of my own which vastly increases its palatability. I found out how to do it. I skim all I can conveniently off the top, then I shut my eyes tight and fast, then I open my mouth (which is a good-sized mouth) and it all runs down (ants too), and then I open my eyes and put the cup down and say to myself, "Good! Very good! I like tea." June 20.-Sadie came to see me yesterday, and today it is Lise and Ernestine. We often see each other, and surely we girls are never so happy as when seeing each other. We often wish for Bet, who is far away, and we read each other's letters, and talk about the generals, the colonels, and the majors, and the captains, and the no less dear, delightful privates we used to know in those days of excitement, those nights of enchantment, passed in fair Richmond, on the James. It is thus we live over again the stirring events of those stirring times, when together we fled from Sherman. Columbia, S. C. MALVINA S. WARING, The Burning of Columbia. [Extract from a circular letter addressed to the "Congrégation de Paris" by the "Monastère de Sainte-Ursule de Valle Crucis," near Columbia, S. C.] In the year 1861, when the war broke out between the North and South, a great number of girls—not only children, but girls of twenty and over-came to take refuge in the Convent, their parents wishing to avoid for them the mixed state of society brought about by the The boarding school has never been more flourishing than at the opening of the year 1865. Nevertheless, we were then in great anxiety, as well from the absence of our bishop, who had gone to Rome, as from the approach of the Northern Army, which brought desolation along its route. A telegram had announced the fall of Chattanooga. Charleston and Savannah were threatened, and Columbia was in great alarm. Soon the army marched across Georgia into South Carolina, carrying destruction everywhere, burning all houses and mills along its road. The 15th of February, the enemy occupied the heights of Lexington and commenced the bombardment of Columbia. After twenty-four hours of this bombardment, which caused much damage, the commanding general of the Northern Army, William Tecumseh Sherman, received a deputation from the mayor, giving him peaceable possession of the city. About ten o'clock in the morning eight hundred cavalrymen entered Columbia, and found it occupied only by women, children, and old men. Columbia had also been considered so absolutely safe that it had been made a depot for many of the treasures of the Confederacy. Bankers had deposited there their funds; merchants had brought their merchandise, and families their valuables. All these circumstances were known, and therefore the destruction of Columbia had been resolved upon. We here give an account of the burning of the Convent and Boarding School, from the testimony of a friend and one who witnessed these occurrences. The Convent was, unfortunately, in the middle of the town, and could only have been saved with great difficulty from the surrounding conflagration, even had efforts been made to that end. When the town was taken possession of by General Sherman, Father O'Connell had obtained a guard for our protection, and thus while stores and private houses were being pillaged by soldiers, the nuns were not even disturbed. Towards midday, a cavalry officer arrived, who, after questioning the sentinel, rang the door bell. The door was opened by the portress and her companion, whereupon he introduced himself as Major FitzGibbons, and wished to see the superior of the establishment. Having presented himself to the reverend mother as a Catholic, he offered any necessary help. The nuns not understanding him, and having no suspicion of the dangers threatening them, |