From the Richmond Dispatch, 6/7/1861, p. 3
The city hands and carts are employed at the defensive works now being erected at Marion Hill. In view of the necessary absence of the force, it is hoped that citizens will promptly attend to the cleansing of gutters opposite houses occupied for them. Should this suggestion be generally followed, the health of the city, very good at this time, as the doctors assure us, will be preserved. The rain which has fallen very copiously at times during the past eight days, has acted in an eminent degree as a purifier. It could not have fallen at a more opportune season.