June 19 — We renewed our march this morning and moved toward the rising sun. We passed Hanover Court House, which is situated about sixteen miles north of Richmond, in a rolling country, and half a mile east of the Central Railroad. There is no sign of a town around the court house; a large brick hotel, court house, and jail is all there is of Hanover Court House. The court house is built of brick, very small, square, and very common in style. The jail is almost small enough for a toy, and is built of free-stone cut in regular blocks two by three feet, which makes a beautiful structure and a strong and substantial cage for jailbirds.
We marched about twelve miles through a beautiful and fertile country; then we halted in the edge of New Kent County, on Mr. Ruffin’s farm, and grazed our horses until night. Although this is war time, yet there are enough traces left of good husbandry on the farm to show that Mr. Ruffin is one of the finest scientific agriculturists in the State. There is now on his farm a large field of the finest wheat that I ever saw, about six feet high, with large, long, and heavy, well-filled heads. The farm is nearly level and the land of the first quality. The house is situated on a beautiful eminence, which affords a fine view of the farm as well as of the surrounding country.
I understand that Mr. Ruffin’s patriotism induced him to espouse the cause of the South, so he left his beautiful home and volunteered in the Southern army early in our present unpleasantness, which of course was an atrocious crime in the estimation of our Northern brethren, consequently some of General Grant’s patriots have been in the house recently armed with the despoiler’s hand.
The house is deserted now, and desolation reigns in silence; the outer doors are standing open, with many books and magazines on agriculture and horticulture lying scattered over the floor and in the yard. The once fine garden is utterly destroyed, the fence is demolished, and the beds are growing up in weeds. There is a mulberry tree in the garden, with the finest and largest mulberries that I ever saw. They are ripe now, and I tried some of them to-day, and I know that they are fine and delicious, and about three times as large as our largest wild ones.
At dusk this evening we renewed our march and moved in the direction of the White House on the lower Pamunkey.
We marched until midnight, then camped by the roadside.
