at the Paris, Vienna, and Centennial Expositions, over all other American wines. A woolen mill, manufacturing men's wear, does a large business, and finds ready sale' for all it can manufacture. Leaving Charlottesville, and going south 60 miles, we come to Lynchburg, Va., where Express transfer is made to Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad for the south and southwest. Lynchburg has sixty tobacco factories, three flour mills, three foundries, one rolling mill, one furniture factory, three cigar factories, four banks, four hotels, two daily papers, sixteen churches, and several public schools (with an average daily attendance of 1,600 pupils). The population is about 20,000, and has unlimited facilities for transportation, via V. M. R. R. to Danville, A. M. & O. R. R. to Norfolk, and Bristol and James river canal from Buchannan to Richmond. The transfer made at this point to the Southern Express Company is always quite heavy, and the promptness with which it is made is the subject of encomiums from both the railroad people and travelers. W. R. Twyman, agent of the Adams Express Company at this place, entered the service in 1855, as clerk at the Charlotteville office, and has occupied all positions in the company up to his present, and given entire satisfaction to his superior officers. The Adams Company runs a double daily over the V. M. R. R., with five messengers between Baltimore and Lynchburg, and one between. 'Alexandria and Strasburg. The whole line of this road has become historical, and the route agent in charge, who saw some of the scenes enacted in it during the war, has good reason to prefer its peacefulness now, to what it was in 1861-2-3 and 4.

The C. & O. R. R., running from Richmond, Va., to Huntington, W. Va., is destined to become one of the trunk lines from the west to the seaboard. It connects with the steamboat system of the west on the Ohio river, and with water and rail connections to all points north and south at Richmond. The scenery on this road is grand in the extreme; and the iron and coal trade is yet in its infancy, though there are numerous furnaces for iron and coke, and coal mines are in operation, the development of which are only limited by means of transportation. Staunton, on the line of the road, is junction of C. & O. R. R., with valley branch B. & O. R. R.

The Express business here is quite an item, and the Adams is represented by Richard (Uncle Dick) Hawkins, who commenced the business there before the railroad was completed, by carrying Express in stage from Charlotteville over the mountain. These two roads are part of the Baltimore division of the Adams Express Company, and are under the superintendency of Jno. Q. A. Herring. Some of the messengers have been with the company twenty years, and while business is not so heavy as in war times, still it shows an increase yearly. We have in opposition to this division, the B. & O. R. R. Express, and the A. M. & O. Express. Washington, D. C. office has the well known Geo. W. Moss as agent, and the Richmond, Va. office is presided over by Mr. J. H. Gibson.

10

CHAPTER VIII.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE WAR DEPARTMENT.--THE ADAMS AT THE SEA ISLANDS.-THE EXPRESS IN CAMP AND HOSPITAL.-AN EPISODE. THE SHAKSPEREAN CHAPLAIN TO COLONEL · HALL'S 47TH NEW YORK.

The Express was a favorite institution with Abraham Lincoln, both before and throughout that memorable administration.

His cabinet was in favor of it; and to the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, it was peculiarly useful. When the Union fleet, commanded by Com. Dupont, captured Hilton Head, Beaufort, in South Carolina, and with them (a few months later) Folly and Morris Islands, it was he who planted there the Adams Express, and gave it special facilities both on the land and in the government propellers plying between New York and Hilton Head, and between the latter port and those fortified islands, during the bombardment of the city of Charleston. The veteran John K. Stimson was its general agent. I had myself the pleasure of lending a hand, occasionally, in the same service at Beaufort, when there was a rush of express matter for "the boys in blue" (some of them "black and blue"); and can attest to the friendly offices of Mr. Stanton and Admiral Dahlgren. The expressman was always welcome on board the flag-ships.

And, by the way, I was "the representative expressman at Fort Gregg, on Morris Island, off Charleston, at a festival held in the bomb-proof one day in honor of a flag-raising, under the direction of Maj. Gen. Terry, and in presence of his staff and the artillery regiment stationed there.

There were other general officers, and among them Col. Ulric Dahlgren, brave but unfortunate son of the commodore of the fleet at the time, who had lost a foot at the battle of Winchester, Va. (I think it was), and for some months, though all right in the saddle, had to use crutches when walking.

The fire from Fort Sumter upon Fort Gregg had ceased for a day or two, but it was confidently expected that when "the stars and the bars were hoisted to the top of the new flag-staff (hitherto only a regimental flag had been used), the enemy would ricochet a few shells at it, or into the regiment band under it while playing the Union anthem. Consequently the general and his staff prudently retired to the bomb-proof; and, after playing two or three national airs, the musicians followed their example, leaving young Dahlgren leaning against the low wall overlooking the scarp of the fort; only two or three rods from the base of the lofty staff, which served so well for a target to the artillery practice of the alert foe.

I stuck by the crippled colonel, for he was in a certain sense in my charge (having accompanied me to the fort); but I confess I was not half as easy in my mind as he was, and, though I hated to leave him, I could not avoid daintily indicating the superior attractions of the bomb-proof.

With a slight curl of his upper lip, the fair-faced young hero deprecated the prudent withdrawal of the general and his staff, as a bad example to the men. It indicated, he thought, a lack of nerve. I could not coincide (preferring to go inside), but remained with him until, it seeming evident that there was to be no "fun" from the enemy, Col. Dahlgren resumed his crutches and followed me into the cavernous shelter, where Gen. Terry was presiding, with his accustomed genial dignity, over a part of the good things with which a long narrow table (illuminated by a row of candles, and strongly scented by the further perfuming power of sundry pails of punch), was loaded. It was a long, low-studded room in the bomb-proof, and with its crowd of from thirty to forty officers, standing at the convivial board, feasting, toasting, and speechifying, presented a very unique and memorable scene.

"How we suffer!" remarked an officer to me, with a smile.

Among the many toasts given was one (I think by Gen. Terry himself), to "THE EXPRESSMEN." Of course I felt it due to our craft to respond, and made a few remarks complimentary to the army and navy, two branches of the service rather hazardous to couple together in a tribute of praise at

that period on the Sea Islands; inasmuch as a little shamefaced jealousy had arisen from the fact that each claimed the sole honor of the capture of Fort Wagner, when, in truth, neither could have achieved the victory without the other.

Indubitably the gun-ships of Admiral Dahlgren, having a good range across the island, protected the advance of the army upon the enemy's so-called impregnable fortifications, and hence the merit of the result of the combined assault was mutual.

By the way, none of us could imagine at the time why the expected shot and shell from the grey-backs did not greet the beautiful flag whose ample folds then, for the first time, floated over Fort Gregg, and flaunted in the free air its defiance to Charleston. The shot-filled battlements of Sumter, so near at hand, were as still, and apparently harmless, as a Sabbath morn in a rural hamlet. Not a gun from Charleston nor from Fort Moultrie. Perhaps that was too much to expect, but Sumter must surely be napping.

Or had a sudden spasm of revived affection and veneration for the stars and stripes seized the gunners, or the commandant, when the national banner, flung to the breeze from the lofty flag-staff, astonished their wondering optics; and hence they had no heart to fire upon it?

Probably the white tapering mast had not been seen by them, and the great flag, looking isolated and unheld, must have seemed, to some of them, an optical illusion, or something as preternatural as Constantine's cross in the sky.

Poor Ulric! I had dressed his footless stump for him while he was John K. Stimson's guest at Beaufort, S. C.; and his fair, frank, manly young countenance, and high-bred yet simple manners, won my cordial esteem, and I could not but admire his indifference to the pain of his mutilation when, assisted into the saddle, he would ride his horse as cheerfully as the most hale and hearty among us.

He was a good horseman, and graceful in spite of his single foot. Yet under that superficial ease, Col. Dahlgren carried, it has been said, a broken heart. Disappointed in a misplaced affection, and attributing it to the maimed limb, life had no longer any charms for him; and shortly after his return from his final