In the streets mud and slush and snow had gathered, with no attempt of man to clean them away, but the wheels of the cannon had cut ruts in them a foot deep.

The great white colonial houses, with their green shutters fastened tightly, stood lone and desolate amid their deserted lawns.

No smoke rose from the chimneys.

The shops were closed.

There was no sound of a child's voice in the whole town.
It was the first time that Harry had ever ridden through a deserted city, and it was truly a city of the dead to him.
"It's almost as bad as a battlefield after the battle is over," he said to Dalton, who was with him.
"It gives you a haunted, weird feeling," said Dalton, looking at the closed windows and smokeless chimneys.
But the people of Fredericksburg had good cause to go.