Grim Reminder

THE BELEAGUERED CITY: RICHMOND 1861-1865--AIfred Hoyt Bill--Knopf ($3).

Another book on the War between the States has appeared, to remind Americans that their greatest war is still the one fought in America between Americans. The Beleaguered City is a sometimes lively, sometimes somber, always exciting description of the Confederate capital during its four-year ordeal as the symbol of victory to both North and South.

Virginia was a reluctant seceder. The state did not leave the Union until Fort Sumter was fired on and President Lincoln called for volunteers. In the first flush of secession and war optimism, in the almost carefree mood of Richmond, any Confederate could take care of ten Yankees. The deceptive mood was heightened by the victory at Bull Run. General McClellan's guns, as he inched up the Peninsula less than a year later, sounded the first grim note.

Author Bill's Richmond swarms with society belles, refugees from the overrun plantations, speculators, spies, politicians, soldiers, officers, the dead, the dying. Here is the young Stonewall Jackson, speaking in a high, piping voice. Here is Cavalry General Stuart, mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, brought to Richmond to die in a city too poor and gloomy to pay him the proper last respects. Here is Raphael Semmes, dashing captain of the Alabama (which was sunk by the Kearsarge in one of the war's great naval fights), who for a few days raised Richmond's flagging spirits. Here is General Robert E. Lee, besieged by Southern belles who had been criticized for going to dances in wartime. Said Lee: "Go, my dears, and look your prettiest."

The end of Richmond's ordeal came in siege, smoke and fire. But before fire came hunger. In the ever more crowded hospitals, "a fat rat, planked and broiled, came to be recognized as a delicacy by the male nurses and orderlies." Before the end, even the rats had disappeared from Richmond's streets.

The Beleaguered City is a grim reminder to Americans of what can happen when even a peace-loving people finds its inner conflicts irrepressible.

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