T. C. DeLeon, (continued 8)

"Jackson's commissary" was a favorite butt for the shafts of rebel humor. Another "Mother Goose" thus pictures him:

This verse on McClellan does not go to prove that the South respected any less the humane warfare, or the tactical ability of him his greatest opponents declared "the North's best general."

Or this, embalming the military cant of the day:

Perhaps no pen, or no brush, in all the South limned with bolder stroke the follies, or the foibles, of his own, than did that of Innes Randolph, of Stuart's Engineer staff; later to win national fame by his "Good Old Rebel" song. Squib, picture and poem filled Randolph's letters, as brilliant flashes did his conversation. On Mr. Davis proclaiming Thanksgiving Day, after the unfortunate Tennessee campaign, Randolph versified the proclamation, section by section, as sample:

Round many a smoky camp-fire were sung clever songs, whose humor died with their gallant singers, for want of recording memories in those busy days. Latham, Caskie and Page McCarty sent out some of the best of the skits; a few verses of one by the latter's floating to mind, from the snowbound camp on the Potomac, stamped by his vein of rollicking satire-with-a-tear in it:

Naturally enough, with a people whose nerves were kept at abnormal tension, reaction carried the humor of the South largely into travesty. Where the reality was ever somber, creation of the unreal found popular and acceptable form in satiric verse. Major Caskie—who ever went into battle with a smile on his lips—found time, between fights, for broad pasquinade on folly about him, with pen and pencil. His very clever parody of a touching and well-known poem of the time, found its way to many a camp-fire and became a classic about the Richmond "hells." It began:

Everything tending to bathos—whether for the cause, or against it—caught its quick rebuke, at the hands of some glib funmaker. Once an enthusiastic admirer of the hero of Charleston indited a glowing ode, of which the refrain ran:

Promptly came another, and most distorted version; its peculiar refrain enfolding:

As it is not of record that the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia ever discovered the junior laureate, the writer will not essay to do so.

Colonel Tom August, of the First Virginia, was the Charles Lamb of Confederate war-wits; genial, quick and ever gay. Early in secession days, a bombastic friend approached Colonel Tom, with the query: "Well, sir, I presume your voice is still for war?"

To which the wit replied promptly: "Oh, yes, devilish still!"

Later, when the skies looked darkest and rumors of abandoning Richmond were wildly flying, Colonel August was limping up the street. A quidnunc hailed him:

"Well! The city is to be given up. They're moving the medical stores."

"Glad of it!" called back Colonel Tom—"We'll get rid of all this blue mass!"

From the various army camps floated out stories, epigrams and anecdotes unnumbered; most of them wholly forgotten, with only a few remembered from local color, or peculiar point. General Zeb Vance's apostrophe to the buck-rabbit, flying by him from heavy rifle fire: "Go it, cotton-tail! If I hadn't a reputation, I'd be with you!"—was a favorite theme for variations. Similarly modified to fit, was the protest of the western recruit, ordered on picket at Munson's Hill:

"Go yander ter keep 'un off! Wy, we'uns kem hyah ter fight th' Yanks; an' ef you'uns skeer 'un off, how'n thunder ez thar goan ter be a scrimmidge, no how?"

A different story—showing quick resource, where resources were lacking—is told of gallant Theodore O'Hara, who left the noblest poem of almost any war, "The Bivouac of the Dead." While he was adjutant-general, a country couple sidled shyly up to headquarters of his division, one day; the lady blushingly stating their business. It was the most important one of life: they wanted to marry. So, a council of war was held, no chaplain being available; and the general insisted on O'Hara tying the knot. Finally, he consented to try; the couple stood before him; the responses as to obedience and endowment were made; and there O'Hara stuck fast!

"Go on!" prompted the general—"The benediction."

The A.A.G. paused, stammered; then, raising his hand grandly, shouted in stentorian tones:

"In the name and by the authority of the Confederate States of North America, I proclaim you man and wife!"

A grim joke is handed down from the winter camps before Atlanta, when rations were not only worst but least. A knot round a mess-fire examined ruefully the tiny bits of moldy bacon, stuck on their bayonet-grills, when one hard old veteran remarked:

"Say, boys! Didn't them fellers wot died las' spring jest git th' commissary, though!"

Another, not very nice, still points equally the dire straits of the men, from unchanged clothing, and their grim humor under even that trial. Generals Lee and Ewell—riding through a quiet road in deep consultation, followed by members of their staff—came suddenly upon a North Carolinian at the roadside. Nude to the waist, and careless of the august presences near, the soldier paid attention only to the dingy shirt he held over the smoke of some smoldering brush. The generals past, an aide spurred up to the toilet-making vet, and queried sharply:

"Didn't you see the generals, sir? What in thunder are you doing?"

"Skirmishin'!" drawled the unmoved warrior—"An' I ent takin' no pris'ners, nuther!"

After this lapse of time—when retrospect shows but the gloom and sorrow which shadowed the dark "days of storm and stress," while none of the excitement and tension in them remains—it may seem incomprehensible that the South could laugh in song, while she suffered and fought and starved. Stranger still must it be to know that many a merry peal rang through the barred windows of the fortress-prisons of the North. Yet, many a one of the exchanged captives brought back a rollicking "prison glee;" and some sing, even to-day, the legend of "Fort Delaware, Del."

The "Prison Wails" of Thomas F. Roche, a Marylander long captive, is a close and clever parody on General Lytell's "I am dying, Egypt," which came through the lines and won warm admirers South. It describes prison discipline, diet and dirt, with keen point and broad grin. From its opening lines:

to the human, piteous plaint that ends it:

the original is closely followed and equally distorted.

But strangest, amid all strange humors of the war, was that which echoed laughter over the leaguered walls of scarred, starving, desperate Vicksburg! No siege in all history tells of greater peril and suffering, borne with wondrous endurance and heroism, by men and women. It is a story of privation unparalleled, met by fortitude and calm acceptance which recall the early martyrdoms for faith! And, indeed, love of country grew to be a religion, especially with the women of the South, though happily none proved it by stress so dire as those of her heroic city; and they cherished it in the darkest midnight of their cause, with constancy and hope that nerved the strong and shamed the laggard.

That history is one long series of perils and privations—of absolute isolation—sufficient to have worn down the strongest and to have quenched even

Yet, even in Vicksburg—torn by shot and shell, hopeless of relief from without, reduced to direst straits of hunger within—the supreme rebel humor rose above nature; and men toiled and starved, fought their hopeless fight and died—not with the stoicism of the fatalist, but with the cheerfulness of duty well performed! And when Vicksburg fell, a curious proof of this was found; a manuscript bill-of-fare, surmounted by rough sketch of a mule's head crossed by a human hand holding a Bowie-knife. That memorable menu reads:

HOTEL DE VICKSBURG, BILL OF FARE, FOR JULY, 1863.

Soup: Mule tail.

Boiled: Mule bacon, with poke greens; mule ham, canvassed.

Roast: Mule sirloin; mule rump, stuffed with rice; saddle-of-mule, à l'armee.

Vegetables: Boiled rice; rice, hard boiled; hard rice, any way.

Entrées: Mule head, stuffed à la Reb; mule beef, jerked à la Yankie; mule ears, fricasseed à la getch; mule side, stewed—new style, hair on; mule liver, hashed à l'explosion.

Side Dishes: Mule salad; mule hoof, soused; mule brains à l'omelette; mule kidneys, braisés on ramrod; mule tripe, on half (Parrot) shell; mule tongue, cold, à la Bray.

Jellies: Mule foot (3-to-yard); mule bone, à la trench.

Pastry: Rice pudding, pokeberry sauce; cottonwood-berry pie, à la iron-clad; chinaberry tart.

Dessert: White-oak acorns; beech-nuts; blackberry-leaf tea; genuine Confederate coffee.

Liquors: Mississippi water, vintage 1492, very superior, $3; limestone water, late importation, very fine, $3.75; spring water, Vicksburg bottled up, $4.

Meals at few hours. Gentlemen to wait upon themselves. Any inattention in service should be promptly reported at the office.

Jeff Davis & Co., Proprietors.

Card: The proprietors of the justly-celebrated Hotel de Vicksburg, having enlarged and refitted the same, are now prepared to accommodate all who may favor them with a call. Parties arriving by the river, or by Grant's inland route, will find Grape, Cannister & Co.'s carriages at the landing, or any depot on the line of entrenchments. Buck, Ball & Co. take charge of all baggage. No effort will be spared to make the visit of all as interesting as possible.

This capture was printed in the Chicago Tribune, with the comment that it was a ghastly and melancholy burlesque. There is really a train of melancholy in the reflection that it was so little of a burlesque; that they who could endure such a siege, on such fare, should have been compelled to bear their trial in vain. But the quick-satisfying reflection must follow of the truth, the heroism—the moral invincibility—of a people who could so endure and—laugh!

But it was not only from the soldiers and the camps that the humor of the South took its color. Spite of the strain upon its better part—from anxiety, hope-deferred and actual privation—the society of every city keeps green memories of brilliant things said and written, on the spur of excitement and contact, that kept the sense of the whole people keenly alert for any point—whether serious or ridiculous.

The society of the Capital was marked evidence of this. It preserved many epigrammatic gems; often coming from the better—and brighter—half of its composition. For Richmond women had long been noted for society ease and aplomb, as well as for quickness of wit; and now the social amalgam held stranger dames and maidens who might have shown in any salon.

A friend of the writer—then a gallant staff-officer; now a grave, sedate and semi-bald counsellor—had lately returned from European capitals; and he was, of course, in envied possession of brilliant uniform and equipment. At a certain ball, his glittering blind-spurs became entangled in the flowing train of a dancing belle—one of the most brilliant of the set. She stopped in mid-waltz; touched my friend on the broidered chevron with taper fingers, and sweetly said:

"Captain, may I trouble you to dismount?"

Another noted girl—closely connected with the administration—made one of a distinguished party invited by Secretary Mallory to inspect a newly-completed iron-clad, lying near the city. It was after many reverses had struck the navy, causing—as heretofore shown—destruction of similar ships. Every detail of this one explained, lunch over and her good fortune drunk, the party were descending the steps to the captain's gig, when this belle stopped short.

"Oh! Mr. Secretary!" she smiled innocently—"You forgot to show us one thing!"

"Indeed?" was the bland query—"Pray what was it?"

To which came the startling rejoinder:

"Why your arrangement for blowing them up!"

There was one handsome and dashing young aide, equally noted for influence at division-headquarters, which sent him constantly to Richmond; and for persistent devotion, when there, to a sharp-witted belle with a great fortune. One night he appeared at a soiree in brand new uniform, his captain's bars replaced by the major's star on the collar. The belle, leaning on his arm wearily, was pouting; when another passed and said: "I congratulate you, major. And what are your new duties?"

The officer hesitated only one instant, but that was fatal; for the lady on his arm softly lisped: "Oh! he is Mrs. General ——'s commissary, with the rank of major!"

It is needless to add that the epigram—unjust as it was—had its effect; and the belle was no more besieged.

But of all the bright coteries in Richmond society—its very arcanum of wit, brilliance and culture—rises to memory that wholly unique set, that came somehow to be called "the Mosaic Club." Organization it was none; only a clique of men and women—married as well as single—that comprised the best intellects and prettiest accomplishments of the Capital. Many of the ladies were Will Wyatt's "easy goers;" ever tolerant, genial and genuine at the symposia of the Mosaics, as they showed behind their chevaux-de-frise of knitting-needles elsewhere. Some of them have since graced happy and luxurious homes; some have struggled with poverty and sorrow as only true womanhood may struggle; some have fought out the battle of life, sleeping now at rest forever. But one and all then faced their duty—sad, bitter, uncongenial as it might be—with loyalty and tender truth; one and all were strong enough to put by somber things, when meet to do so, and enjoy to the full the better pleasures society might offer.

And the men one met wore wreaths upon their collars often; quite as likely chevrons of "the men" upon their sleeves. Cabinet ministers, poets, statesmen, artists, and clergymen even were admitted to the "Mosaics;" the only "Open sesame!" to which its doors fell wide being that patent of nobility stamped by brain and worth alone.

Without organization, without officers; grown of itself and meeting as chance, or winter inactivity along army lines dictated—the Mosaic Club had no habitat. Collecting in one hospitable parlor, or another—as good fortune happened to provide better material for the delighting "muffin-match," or the entrancing "waffle-worry," as Will Wyatt described those festal procedures—the intimates who chanced in town were bidden; or, hearing of it, came to the feast of waffles and the flow of coffee—real coffee! without bids. They were ever welcome and knew it; and they were likewise sure of something even better than muffins, or coffee, to society-hungry men from the camps. And once gathered, the serious business of "teaing" over, the fun of the evening began.

The unwritten rule—indeed, the only rule—was the "forfeit essay," a game productive of so much that was novel and brilliant, that no later invention of peace-times has equaled it. At each meeting two hats would be handed round, all drawing a question from the one, a word from the other; question and word to be connected in either a song, poem, essay, or tale for the next meeting. Then, after the drawing for forfeits, came the results of the last lottery of brain; interspersed with music by the best performers and singers of the city; with jest and seriously-brilliant talk, until the wee sma' hours, indeed.

O! those nights ambrosial, if not of Ambrose's, which dashed the somber picture of war round Richmond, with high-lights boldly put in by master-hands! Of them were quaint George Bagby, Virginia's pet humorist; gallant, cultured Willie Meyers; original Trav Daniel; Washington, artist, poet and musician; Page McCarty, recklessly brilliant in field and frolic alike; Ham Chamberlayne, quaint, cultivated and colossal in originality; Key, Elder and other artists; genial, jovial Jim Pegram; Harry Stanton, Kentucky's soldier poet—and a score of others who won fame, even if some of them lost life—on far different fields. There rare "Ran" Tucker—later famed in Congress and law school—told inimitably the story of "The time the stars fell," or sang the unprecedented ballad of "The Noble Skewball," in his own unprecedented fashion!

It was at the Mosaic that Innes Randolph first sang his now famous "Good Old Rebel" song; and there his marvelous quickness was Aaron's rod to swallow all the rest. As example, once he drew from one hat the words, "Daddy Longlegs;" from the other, the question, "What sort of shoe was made on the Last of the Mohicans?" Not high wit these, to ordinary seeming; and yet apparent posers for sensible rhyme. But they puzzled Randolph not a whit; and—waiving his "grace" until the subsequent meeting, he rattled off extempore:

Laughter and applause were, in mid-roar, cut by Randolph's voice calling:

Corollary first: If Daddy Longlegs stole the Indian's shoe to keep his foot warm, that was no excuse for him to steal his house, to keep his wigwam.

And again he broke down—only to renew—the chorus with:

Corollary second: Because the Indian's shoe did not fit any Mohawk, was no reason that it wouldn't fit Narragansett!

Such, in brief retrospect was the Mosaic Club! Such in part the fun and fancy and frolic that filled those winter nights in Richmond, when sleet and mud made movements of armies, "Heaven bless us! a thing of naught!"

The old colonel—that staff veteran, so often quoted in these pages—was a rare, if unconscious humorist. Gourmet born, connoisseur by instinct and clubman by life habit, the colonel writhed in spirit under discomfort and camp fare, even while he bore both heroically in the flesh; his two hundred and sixty pounds of it! Once, Styles Staple and Will Wyatt met him, inspecting troops in a West Virginia town; and they received a long lecture, à la Brillat Savarin, on enormities of the kitchen.

"And these people have fine wines, too," sadly wound up the colonel. "Marvelous wines, egad! But they don't know how to let you enjoy them!"

"'Tis a hard case," sympathized Styles, "I do hear sometimes of a fellow getting a stray tea, but as for a dinner! It's no use, colonel; these people either don't dine themselves, or they imagine we don't."

"Did it ever strike you," said the colonel, waxing philosophic, "that you can't dine in but two places south of the Potomac? True, sir. Egad! You may stumble upon a country gentleman with a plentiful larder and a passable cook, but then, egad, sir! he's an oasis. The mass of the people South don't live, sir! they vegetate—vegetate and nothing else. You get watery soups. Then they offer you mellow madeira with some hot, beastly joint; and oily old sherry with some confounded stew. Splendid materials—materials that the hand of an artist would make luscious—egad, sir; luscious—utterly ruined in the handling. It's too bad, Styles, too bad!"

"It is, indeed," put in Wyatt, falling into the colonel's vein, "too bad! And as for steaks, why, sir, there is not a steak in this whole country. They stew them, colonel, actually stew beefsteaks! Listen to the receipt a 'notable housewife' gave me: 'Put a juicy steak, cut two inches thick, in a saucepan; cover it well with water; put in a large lump of lard and two sliced onions. Let it simmer till the water dries; add a small lump of butter and a dash of pepper—and it's done!' Think of that, sir, for a bonne bouche!"

"Good God!" ejaculated the colonel, with beads on his brow. "I have seen those things, but I never knew how they were done! I shall dream of this, egad! for weeks."

"Fact, sir," Wyatt added, "and I've a theory that no nation deserves its liberties that stews its steaks. Can't gain them, sir! How can men legislate—how can men fight with a pound of stewed abomination holding them like lead? 'Bold and erect the Caledonian stood,' but how long do you think he would have been 'bold,' if they had stewed his 'rare beef' for him? No, sir! mark my words: the nation that stews its beefsteaks contracts its boundaries! As for an omelette——"

"Say no more, Will!" broke in the colonel solemnly. "After the war, come to my club and we'll dine—egad, sir! for a week!"

That invincible pluck of the southron, which carried him through starvation and the sweltering march of August, through hailing shot and shell, and freezing mud of midwinter camps—was unconquered even after the surrender. Equally invincible was that twin humor, which laughed amid all these and bore up, even in defeat. Some of the keenest hits of all the war—tinctured though they be with natural bitterness—are recalled from those days, when the beaten, but defiant, Rebel was passing under the victor's yoke.

Surprising, indeed, to its administrators must have been the result of "the oath," forced upon one green cavalryman, before he could return to family and farm. Swallowing the obnoxious allegiance, he turned to the Federal officer and quietly asked:

"Wail, an' now I reck'n I'm loyil, ain't I?"

"Oh, yes! You're all right," carelessly replied the captor.

"An' ef I'm loyil, I'm same as you 'uns?" persisted the lately sworn. "We're all good Union alike, eh?"

"Oh, yes," the officer humored him. "We're all one now."

"Wail then," rejoined Johnny Reb slowly, "didn't them darned rebs jest geen us hell sometimes?"

City Point, on the James river, was the landing for transports with soldiers released from northern prisons, after parole. A bustling, self-important major of United States volunteers was at one time there, in charge. One day a most woe-begone, tattered and emaciated "Johnnie" sat swinging his shoeless feet from a barrel, awaiting his turn.

"It isn't far to Richmond," suddenly remarked the smart major, to nobody in particular.

"Reck'n et's neer onto three thousin' mile," drawled the Confed. weakly.

"Nonsense! You must be crazy," retorted the officer staring.

"Wail, I ent a-reck'nin' adzact," was the slow reply—"Jest tho't so, kinder."

"Oh! you did? And pray why?"

"Cos et's took'n you'uns nigh onto foore year to git thar from Wash'nton," was the settling retort.

In the provost-marshal's department at Richmond, shortly after surrender, was the neatest and most irrepressible of youths. Never discourteous and often too sympathetic, he was so overcurious as to be what sailors describe as "In everybody's mess and nobody's watch." One day a quaint, Dickensesque old lady stood hesitant in the office doorway. Short, wrinkled and bent with age, she wore a bombazine gown of antique cut—its whilom black red-rusty from time's dye. But "Aunt Sallie" was a character in Henrico county; and noted withal for the sharpest of tongues and a fierce pair of undimmed eyes, which now shone under the dingy-brown poke bonnet. Toward her sallied the flippant young underling, with the greeting:

"Well, madam, what do you wish?"

"What do I wish?" The old lady grew restive and battle-hungry.

"Yes'm! That's what I asked," retorted the youth sharply.

"What do I wish?" slowly repeated the still-rebellious dame. "Well, if you must know, I wish all you Yankees were in —— hell!"

But not all the humor was confined to the governing race; some of its points cropping out sharply here and there, from under the wool of "the oppressed brother"—in-law. One case is recalled of the spoiled body servant of a gallant Carolinian, one of General Wheeler's brigade commanders. His master reproved his speech thus:

"Peter, you rascal! Why don't you speak English, instead of saying 'wah yo' is'?"

"Waffer, Mars' Sam?" queried the negro with an innocent grin. "Yo allus calls de Gen'ral—Weel-er?"

Another, close following the occupation, has a spice of higher satire. A Richmond friend had a petted maid, who—devoted and constant to her mistress, even in those tempting days—still burned with genuine negro curiosity for a sight of everything pertaining to "Mars' Linkum's men"—especially for "de skule."

For swift, indeed, were the newcome saints to preach the Evangel of alphabet; and negro schools seemed to have been smuggled in by every army ambulance, so numerously did they spring up in the captured Capital. So, early one day, Clarissa Sophia, the maid of color, donned her very best and, "with shiny morning face," hied her, like anything but a snail, to school. Very brief was her absence; her return reticent, but pouting and with unduly tip-tilted nose. After a time negro love for confidences conquered; and the murder came out.

The school-room had been packed and pervaded with odors—of sanctity, or otherwise—when a keen-nosed and eager school-marm rose up to exhort her class. She began by impressing the great truth that every sister present was "born free and equal;" was "quite as good" as she was.

"Wa' dat yo's sain' now?" interrupted Clarissa Sophia. "Yo' say Ise jess ekal as yo' is?"

"Yes; I said so," was the sharp retort, "and I can prove it!"

"Ho! 'Tain't no need," replied the lately disenthralled. "Reck'n I is, sho' nuff. But does yo' say dat Ise good as missus?—my missus?"

"Certainly you are!" This with asperity.

"Den Ise jess gwine out yere, rite off!" cried Clarissa Sophia, suiting action to word—"Ef Ise good as my missus, I'se goin' ter quit; fur I jess know she ent 'soshiatin' wid no sich wite trash like you is!"

And so—under all skies and among all colors—the war dragged its weary length out; amid sufferings and sacrifices, which may never be recorded; and which were still illumined by the flashes of unquenchable humor—God's tonic for the heart!

Had every camp contained its Froissart—had every social circle held its Boswell—what a record would there be, for reading by generations yet unborn!

But—when finished, as this cramped and quite unworthy chronicle of random recollections is—then might the reader still quote justly her of Sheba, exclaiming:

"And behold! the one-half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me!"

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

While neither in itself—perhaps not the combination of the two—was final and conclusive, the beginning of the end of the Confederacy may be dated from the loss of Vicksburg and the simultaneous retreat from Gettysburg. For these two disasters made all classes consider more deeply, both their inducing causes and the final results that must follow a succession of such crushing blows.

There can be little doubt that a complete victory at Gettysburg, vigorously followed up, would have ended the war; and the generally-accepted belief in the South was that the exhaustive defeat was proportionately bad. The war had been going on two years and a half. Every device had been used to put the whole numerical strength of the country into the field and to utilize its every resource. The South had succeeded to a degree that stupefied the outside world and astonished even herself. But the effort had exhausted, and left her unfit to renew it. Over and again the armies of the East and West had been re-enforced, reorganized and re-equipped—and ever came the heavy, relentless blows of the seemingly-exhaustless power, struggled against so vainly. The South had inflicted heavy loss in men, material and prestige; but she wasted her strength in these blows, while unhappily she could not make them effective by quick repetition.

The people, too, had lost their early faith in the Government. They had submitted to the most stringent levy of conscription and impressment ever imposed upon a nation. They had willingly left their fields to grow weeds, their children to run wild and perhaps to starve; they had cheerfully divided their last supplies of food with the Government, and had gone to the front steadily and hopefully. But now they could not fail to see that, in some points at least, there had been gross mismanagement. The food for which their families were pinched and almost starved, did not come to the armies. Vast stores of provision and supplies were blocked on the roads, while speculators' ventures passed over them. This, the soldiers in the trench and the laborer at the anvil saw equally.

They saw, too, that the Government was divided against itself; for the worse than weak Congress—which had formerly been as a nose of wax in Mr. Davis' fingers—had now turned dead against him. With the stolid obstinacy of stupidity it now refused to see any good in any measure, or in any man, approved by the Executive.

Under the leadership of Mr. Foote—who wasted the precious time of Congress in windy personal diatribes against Mr. Davis and his "pets"—nothing was done to combine and strengthen the rapidly sundering elements of Confederate strength. Long debates on General Pemberton; weighty disquisitions on such grave subjects as the number of pounds of pork on hand when Vicksburg was surrendered; and violent attacks on the whole past course of the administration, occupied the minds of those lawgivers. But at this time there was no single measure originated that proposed to stop the troubles in the future.

Therefore, the people lost confidence in the divided Government; and losing it began to distrust themselves. Suffering so for it, they could not fail to know the terrible strain to which the country had been subjected. They knew that her resources in men and material had been taxed to the limit; that there was no fresh supply of either upon which to draw. This was the forlorn view that greeted them when they looked within. And outside, fresh armies faced and threatened them on every side—increased rather than diminished, and better armed and provided than ever before.

This state of things was too patent not to be seen by the plainest men; and seeing it, those became dispirited who never had doubted before. And this time, the gloom did not lift; it became a settled and dogged conviction that we were fighting the good fight almost against hope. Not that this prevented the army and the people from working still, with every nerve strained to its utmost tension; but they worked without the cheery hopefulness of the past.

Fate seemed against them. Had they been Turks they would have said: "It is kismet! Allah is great!" As they were only staunch patriots, they reasoned: "It is fearful odds—but we may win." And so solemnly, gloomily—but none the less determined—the South again prepared for the scarcely doubtful strife.

The stringent addenda to the Conscription law—that had come too late—were put into force. All men that could possibly be spared—and whom the trickery of influence could not relieve—were sent to the front; and their places in the Government were filled by the aged, the disabled, and by women. In the Government departments of Richmond—and in their branches further South—the first ladies of the land took position as clerks—driven to it by stress of circumstances. And now as ever—whether in the arsenals, the factories, or the accountant's desk—the women of the South performed their labor faithfully, earnestly and well. Those men who could not possibly be spared, were formed into companies for local defense; were regularly drilled, mustered into service, and became in fact regular soldiers, simply detailed to perform other work. When the wild notes of the alarm bell sent their frequent peals over Richmond, and warned of an approaching raid—armorer, butcher and clerk threw down hammer and knife and pen, and seized their muskets to hasten to the rendezvous. Even the shopkeepers and speculators, who seemed conscription-proof, were mustered into some sort of form; driven to make at least a show of resistance to the raid, by which they would suffer more than any others. But it was only a show; and so much more attention was paid in these organizations to filling of the commissary wagon than of the cartridge-box, that the camps of such "melish," in the woods around Richmond, were converted more into a picnic than a defense.

Supplies of war material, of clothing, and of arms, had now become as scarce as men. The constant drain had to be supplied from manufactories, worked under great difficulties; and these now were almost paralyzed by the necessity for their operatives at the front. Old supplies of iron, coal and ore had been worked up; and obtaining and utilizing fresh ones demanded an amount of labor that could not be spared. The blockade had now become thoroughly effective; and, except a rare venture at some unlooked-for spot upon the coast, no vessel was expected to come safely through the network of ships. Blankets and shoes had almost completely given out; and a large proportion of the army went barefoot and wrapped in rugs given by the ladies of the cities, who cut up their carpets for that purpose.

Yet, in view of all this privation; with a keen sense of their own sacrifices and a growing conviction that they were made in vain, the army kept up in tone and spirits. There was no intention or desire to yield, as long as a blow could be struck for the cause; and the veteran and the "new issue"—as the new conscripts were called in derision of the currency—alike determined to work on as steadily, if not so cheerily, as before.

And still Congress wrangled on with Government and within itself; still Mr. Foote blew clouds of vituperative gas at President and Cabinet; still Mr. Davis retained, in council and field, the men he had chosen. And daily he grew more unpopular with the people, who, disagreeing with him, still held him in awe, while they despised the Congress. Even in this strait, the old delusion about the collapse of Federal finance occasionally came up for hopeful discussion; and, from time to time, Mr. Benjamin would put out a feeler about recognition from governments that remembered us less than had we really been behind the great wall of China.

After Gettysburg and Vicksburg, came a lull in the heavier operations of the war. But raids of the enemy's cavalry were organized and sent to penetrate the interior South, in every direction. To meet them were only home guards and the militia; with sometimes a detachment of cavalry, hastily brought up from a distant point. This latter branch of service, as well as light artillery, now began to give way. The fearful strain upon both, in forced and distant marches, added to the wearing campaigns over the Potomac, had used up the breed of horses in the South. Those remaining were broken down by hard work and half feed; so that one-half the cavalry was dismounted—belonging to "Company Q" the men called it—and the rest was scarcely available for a rapid march, or a very heavy shock.

But the cavalry of the enemy had increased wonderfully in drill, discipline and general efficiency. Armed with the best weapons, mounted upon choice horses, composed of picked men and officered by the boldest spirits in the North, Federal cavalry now began to be the most potent arm of their service. Men sadly recalled the pleasant days when the brilliant squadrons of Hampton, or Fitz Lee—the flower of the South, mounted on its best blood stock—dashed laughingly down upon three times their force, only to see them break and scatter; while many of their number rolled over the plain, by the acts of their own steeds rather than of hostile sabers. Even much later, when the men were ragged and badly armed, and the horses were gaunt from famine, they still could meet the improving horsemen of the enemy and come off victors—as witness the battles of the Fords. But now the Yankees had learned to fight—and more incomprehensible still to the Reb, they had learned to ride! They were superior in numbers, equipment, and—to be honest—in discipline; and could no longer be met with any certainty of success. It was a bitter thing for the Golden Horse Shoe Knights; but like many ugly things about this time, it was true. So the Yankee raids—aimed as a finality for Richmond, but ever failing approach to their object—still managed to do incalculable mischief. They drove off the few remaining cattle, stole and destroyed the hoarded mite of the widowed and unprotected—burned barns—destroyed farming utensils; and, worse than all, they demoralized the people and kept them in constant dread.

As a counter-irritant, and to teach the enemy a lesson, General Morgan, early in July, started on a raid into the Northwest. With 2,000 men and a light battery, he passed through Kentucky and on to the river, leaving a line of conquest and destruction behind him—here scattering a regiment of the enemy—there demoralizing a home guard; and, at the river, fighting infantry and a gunboat, and forcing his way across into Indiana. Great was the scare in the West, at this first taste the fine fruits of raiding. Troops were telegraphed, engines flew up and down the roads as if possessed; and in short, home guards, and other troops, were collected to the number of nearly 30,000 men.

Evading pursuit, and scattering the detached bands he met, Morgan crossed the Ohio line—tearing up roads, cutting telegraphs, and inflicting much damage and inconceivable panic—until he reached within five miles of Cincinnati. Of course, with his merely nominal force, he could make no attempt on the city; so, after fourteen days of unresting raiding—his command pressed, worn out and broken down—he headed for the river once more. A small portion of the command had already crossed, when the pursuing force came up. Morgan made heavy fight, but his men were outnumbered and exhausted. A few, following him, cut their way through the enemy and fled along the north bank of the Ohio. The pursuit was fierce and hot; the flight determined, fertile in expedients, but hopeless in an enemy's country, raised to follow the cry. He was captured, with most of his staff and all of his command that was left—save the few hundred who had crossed the river and escaped into the mountains of Virginia.

Then for four months—until he dug his way out of his dungeon with a small knife—John Morgan was locked up as a common felon, starved, insulted and treated with brutality, the recital of which sickens—even having his head shaved! There was no excuse ever attempted; no pretense that he was a guerrilla. It was done simply to glut spite and to make a dreaded enemy feel his captors' power.

Meantime General Bragg, at Tullahoma, faced by Rosecrans and flanked by Burnside's "Army of the Cumberland," was forced to fall back to Chattanooga. Rosecrans pressed him hard, with the intent of carrying out that pet scheme of the North, forcing his army down through Georgia and riddling the Cotton States. It is inessential here to recount the details of these movements. Rosecrans had a heavy and compact force; ours was weak and scattered, and Bragg's urgent appeal for men met the invariable answer, there were none to send. For the same reason—insufficient force—Buckner was forced to abandon Knoxville; and a few weeks later Cumberland Gap, the key-position to East Tennessee and Georgia, was surrendered!

At this critical juncture the loss of that position could scarcely be exaggerated; and the public indignantly demanded of Government why it had been lost. The War Department shifted the responsibility, and declared that no reason existed; that the place was provisioned and impregnable, and that the responsibility rested alone with the officer in command, who was now a prisoner with his whole force.

This hardly satisfied the public clamor; and so ill-omened a commencement augured badly for the success of the campaign for position, in which both armies were now manœuvring. The real details of these preliminary movements are scarcely clear to this day. General Bragg's friends declare that he forced Rosecrans to the position; his enemies, that Rosecrans first out-generaled him and then laid himself open to destruction, while Bragg took no advantage of the situation.

However this may be, we know that on the morning of the 19th September, '63, the battle of Chickamauga was commenced by the enemy in a series of obstinate division engagements, rather than in a general battle; Bragg's object being to gain the Chattanooga road in the enemy's rear, and his to prevent it. The fighting was heavy, stubborn and fierce, and its brunt was borne by Walker, Hood and Cleburne. Night fell on an undecided field, where neither had advantage; and the enemy perhaps had suffered more heavily than we.

All that night he worked hard to strengthen his position; and our attack—which was to have commenced just at dawn—was delayed from some misapprehension of orders. At length Breckinridge and Cleburne opened the fight, and then it raged with desperate, bloody obstinacy, until late afternoon. At that time the Confederate right had been repulsed; but Longstreet's left had driven the enemy before it. Then the whole southern line reformed; moving with steady, resistless sweep upon the confident enemy. He fought obstinately—wavered—rallied—then broke again and fled toward Chattanooga. The rout was complete and the enemy so demoralized that Longstreet—feeling that he could be crushed while panic-struck—ordered Wheeler to intercept his flight. It was stated that Longstreet's order was countermanded by General Bragg; but—whatever the reason—there was no pursuit!

The fruits of the hard-won victory were 8,000 prisoners, 50 pieces of artillery, near 20,000 muskets—plus a loss of life barren of results. For, instead of crushing the enemy and completely relieving the state and the Georgia frontier, the failure to press Rosecrans at the moment left him free communication with his rear and full time to recuperate. Instead of pressing on, General Bragg took position on Missionary Ridge; and criticism of the hour declared that he thus invested the Federals in the town, which—by a rapid advance—might already have been his, without a fight.

It is neither the intent, nor within the scope of these papers—even did their author possess the ability for it—to enter into detailed criticism of military events; far less to reopen those acrimonious partisanships, so bootless at the time and worse than useless now. But, to comprehend the state of public feeling at the South, it is essential to have the plain data, upon which it was based; and to have plainly stated the causes to which popular opinion ascribed certain results.

After Chickamauga, there was very general—and seemingly not causeless—discontent. The eternal policy of massing great armies, at any sacrifice; fighting terrible battles; and then failing to close the grasp upon their fruits—apparently already in hand—had worn public patience so threadbare, that it refused to regard Chickamauga as anything more than another of those aimless killings, which had so often drenched the West, to no avail.

Strong and open expression was made of the popular wish for General Bragg's removal; but Mr. Davis refused—as ever—to hear the people's voice, in a matter of policy. He retained General Bragg, and the people held him responsible for what they claimed was the result—Lookout Mountain!

Fas est ab hoste doceri. Public clamor at the North declared that loss of command should reward Rosecrans for loss of the battle; and, in mid-October, he was superseded by General Grant.

Like all popular heroes of the war, Grant had become noted, rather through hard-hitting than strategic combination. His zenith was mounted on the capture of Vicksburg; a project which northern generals denounced as bad soldiership and possible of success, only through an enemy's weakness. At this time, he was certainly not in high estimation of his own army, because of dogged disregard of loss in useless assaults; and it will be recalled that General McClernand was court-martialed for his declaration that he "could not be expected to furnish brains for the whole army!" The estimate of Grant's compeers is not refuted by any evidence in the War Department that, from Shiloh to Appomattox, he ever made one combination stamped by mark of any soldiership, higher than courage and bull-dog tenacity. Even scouting the generally-accepted idea, in the army of Vicksburg and later in that of Chattanooga—that McPherson provided plans and details of his campaigns; and dismissing McClernand's costly taunt as mere epigram—this was the accepted estimate of General Grant's tactical power.

But he inaugurated his command at Chattanooga with boldness and vigor. He concentrated 25,000 troops in the town; opened his communications; and then—to prevent any possible movement flanking him out of them—boldly took the initiative.

Meantime, Longstreet had been detached by General Bragg, for that badly-provided, badly-digested and wholly ill-starred expedition to Knoxville; one which seemed to prove that the history of misfortune was ever to repeat itself, in impracticable diversions at precisely the wrong time. For, even had this corps not been badly equipped and rationed, while almost wholly lacking in transportation, it certainly depleted a daily-weakening army, in the face of one already double its numbers and daily increasing.

On November 18th—spite of management that forced him to subsist on precarious captures—Longstreet reached the enemy's advanced lines, at Knoxville; drove him into the city and completely isolated him from communication. Capitulation was a mere matter of time; but disastrous news from the main army drove the Confederate to the alternative of assault, or retreat. Choosing the former, he made it with the same desperate gallantry displayed at Gettysburg, or Corinth; illustrated by brilliant, but unavailing, personal prowess. The strength of the enemy's works—and openness of approach, with wire netting interlaced among the stumps of the new clearing, was too much for the southern soldiers. Several times they reached the works, fighting hand-to-hand; but finally Longstreet fell back, in good order and carrying his subsistence. He chose his own line of retreat, too; and with such good judgment as to be within reach of any new combination of Bragg—from whom he was now cut off—or, failing that, to keep his rear open through Virginia, to Lee's army.

Meantime, Grant massed troops in Chattanooga, sufficient in his judgment to crush Bragg; and, learning of the latter's detachment of Longstreet's corps, determined to strike early and hard. On the 25th he attacked with his whole force, in two grand columns under Thomas, Sherman and Hooker. The little southern army of less than forty thousand was judiciously posted; having advantage of being attacked. The terrible shock of the double attack was successfully repulsed on the right by Hardee, on the left by Buckner. Broken, reeling—shattered—he was hurled back, only to form again with splendid courage. Once more checked and driven back, after desperate fighting on both sides, the Federals made a third advance with steady, dogged valor. Then constancy was rewarded; they broke the Confederate center; swung it in disorder upon the wings; and, holding the ground so hotly won, had the key to the position.

Still the day was not wholly lost to the South, had her men not given way to causeless panic. Left and right followed center—lost all order and fell back almost in flight. Then the scattered and demoralized army was saved from utter ruin, only by the admirable manner in which Cleburne covered that rout-like retreat, day after day; finally beating back Thomas' advance so heavily that pursuit was abandoned.

Missionary Ridge cost the South near 8,000 men; all the Chickamauga artillery and more; and the coveted key-position to the situation. But it cost, besides, what could even less be spared; some slight abatement in the popular confidence in our troops, under all trials heretofore. Reasoning from their dislike to General Bragg, people and press declared that the men had been badly handled through the whole campaign; yet—so inured were they to the ragged boys fighting successfully both the enemy and our own errors—there came general bad augury from the panic of Missionary Ridge.

Mr. Davis had visited Bragg's army, after the howl that went up on his failure to press Rosecrans. On his return, the President appeared satisfied and hopeful; he authorized statement that the delay after Chickamauga was simply strategic; and the impression went abroad that Bragg and he had affected combinations now, which would leave Grant only the choice between retreat and destruction.

If these tactics meant the detaching of Longstreet—said thoughtful critics—then are combination and suicide convertible terms!

Neither was public feeling much cheered by the aspect of the war in Virginia. Lee and Meade coquetted for position, without definite result; the former—weakened by Longstreet's absence—striving to slip between Meade and Washington; the latter aiming to flank and mass behind Lee, on one of the three favorite routes to Richmond. The fall and winter wore away with these desultory movements; producing many a sharp skirmish, but nothing more resultful. These offered motif for display of dash and military tact on both sides; that at Kelly's Ford, on the Rapidan—where the Federals caught the Confederates unprepared—showing the hardest hitting with advantage on the Union side. The compliment was exchanged, by a decisive southern success at Germania Ford; but the resultless fighting dispirited and demoralized the people, while it only harassed and weakened the army. Both looked to the great shock to come; forces for which were gathering, perhaps unseen and unheard, yet felt by that morbid prescience which comes in the supreme crises of life.

The trans-Mississippi was now absolutely cut off from participation in the action of the eastern Confederacy; almost equally so from communication with it. Still that section held its own, in the warfare peculiar to her people and their situation. Quick concentrations; sharp, bloody fights—skirmishes in extent, but battles in exhibition of pluck and endurance—were of constant occurrence. Kirby Smith—become almost a dictator through failure of communication—administered his department with skill, judgment and moderation. Husbanding his internal resources, he even established—in the few accessible ports, defiant of blockade—a system of foreign supply; and "Kirby Smithdom"—as it came to be called—was, at this time, the best provisioned and prepared of the torn and stricken sections of the Confederacy.

Note has been made of the improvement of Federal cavalry; and of their raids, that struck terror and dismay among the people. During the winter of '63-'64, Averill penetrated the heart of Virginia, scattering destruction in his path; and, though he retired before cavalry sent to pursue him—he even shot his horses as they gave out, in the forced flight—his expedition had accomplished its object. It had proved that no point of harassed territory was safe from Federal devastation; that the overtaxed and waning strength of the South was insufficient to protect them now!

Gradually—very gradually—this blight of doubt and dissatisfaction began to affect the army; and—while it was no longer possible to fill their places by new levies—some of the men already at the front began to skulk, and even to desert.

Though still uncondoned, the crime of these was roughly urged upon them; for imagination brought to the ears of all, the shriek of the distant wife, insulted by the light of her burning roof and turned starving and half-clothed, into the snowy midnight! And all the more honor was it to the steadfast that they held out—dogged but willing—to the bitter end; fighting as man had not fought before—not only against their enemy—not only against their own natural impulses—but against hope, as well!

For the mass of that grand, tattered and worn army never faltered; and only their enduring patriotism—backed as it was by selfless energy of their home people—availed to make up for the lost opportunities of the Government!

In Congress was vacillation, discord, vacuity; while the people were goaded to the absurd charge, that some of its members were traitors! But the great diplomat has graven the truth, that an error may be worse than a crime; and the errors of the Confederate Congress—from alpha to omega—were born of weakness and feeble grasp on the prompt occasions of a great strife, like this which so submerged their littleness.

It is in some sort at the door of Congress that the head of the government, harassed by overwork, distracted by diverse trifles—each one too vital to entrust to feeble subordinates; buffeted by the gathering surge without and dragged down by the angry undertow within, lost his influence, and with it his power to save!

The beginning of the end had come upon the South. Her stoutest and bravest hearts still,

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES.

From the earliest moment General Grant assumed command in the West, the old idea of bisecting the Confederacy seems to have monopolized his mind. The oft-tried theory of "drilling the heart of the Rebellion"—by cutting through to the Atlantic seaboard—had never been lost sight of, but in Grant's hands it was to be given practical power and direction.

To effect that object, it was essential to make North Georgia the objective point; and North Georgia—now as ever—offered a stubborn and well-nigh insurmountable barrier. But the northern War Department was now fully impressed with the importance of crushing the spine of the Confederacy; and the fact was as clearly realized in the North, as in the South, that the vital cord of Confederate being ran from Atlanta to Richmond! Therefore, every facility of men and material was furnished the commander, who at that moment stood out—in reflected lights from Vicksburg and Missionary Ridge—as the military oracle of the North; and he was urged to press this design of the campaign to a vigorous and speedy issue.

During the winter of 1863-64, General Grant incubated his grand scheme, and with the month of February brought forth a quadruple brood of ridiculous mice.

His plan—in itself a good and sound one—was to secure a permanent base nearer than the Mississippi. To accomplish this he must first secure Mobile, as a water base, and connect that with some defensible point inland. At the same time that this attempt was made—and while the troops guarding the passway into Georgia might be diverted—Thomas, commanding the Chattanooga lines, was to advance against that point.

The plan was undoubtedly sound, but the general's want of balance caused him to overweight it, until its own ponderousness was its destruction. On the 1st of February, Sherman, with a splendidly-appointed force of 35,000 infantry, and corresponding cavalry and artillery, marched out of Vicksburg; to penetrate to Mobile, or some other point more accessible, on the line of the proposed new base. Simultaneously a heavy force approached the city from New Orleans; Smith and Grierson, with a strong body of cavalry, penetrated Northern Mississippi; and Thomas made his demonstration referred to.

Any candid critic will see that four converging columns, to be effective, should never have operated so far away from their point of convergence, and so far separated from each other. The enterprise was gigantic; but its awkwardness equaled its strength, and its own weight broke its back.

Sherman, harassed by cavalry and skirmishers—advanced in solid column; while Polk, with his merely nominal force, was unable to meet him. But the latter fell back in good order; secured his supplies, and so retarded his stronger adversary, that he saved all the rolling-stock of the railroads. When he evacuated Meridian, that lately busy railroad center was left a worthless prize to the captor.

Meantime Forrest had harassed the cavalry force of Smith and Grierson, with not one-fourth their numbers; badly provided and badly mounted. Yet he managed to inflict heavy loss and retard the enemy's march; but finally—unable to wait the junction of S. D. Lee, to give the battle he felt essential—Forrest, on the 20th February, faced the Federal squadrons. Confident of an easy victory over the ragged handful of dismounted skirmishers, the picked cavalry dashed gaily on. Charge after charge was received only to be broken—and Forrest was soon in full pursuit of the whipped and demoralized columns. Only once they turned, were heavily repulsed, and then continued their way to Memphis.

This check of his co-operating column and the utter fruitlessness of his own march, induced a sudden change of Sherman's intent. He fell rapidly back to Vicksburg; his army perhaps more worn, broken and demoralized by the desultory attentions of ours, than it would have been by a regular defeat.

Meantime the New Orleans-Pensacola expedition had danced on and off Mobile without result. Thomas had been so heavily repulsed on the 25th, that he hastily withdrew to his lines at Chickamauga—and the great campaign of General Grant had resulted in as insignificant a fizz as any costly piece of fireworks the war produced.

On the contrary, history will give just meed to Forrest, Lee and Polk for their efficient use of the handfuls of ill-provided men, with whom alone they could oppose separate and organized armies. They saved Alabama and Georgia—and so, for the time, saved the Confederacy. There could be no doubt that the sole safety of the invading columns was their numerical weakness. General Grant's practice of a perfectly sound theory was clearly a gross blunder; and had Polk been in command of two divisions more—had Lee been able to swoop where he only hovered—or had Forrest's ragged boys been only doubled in number—the story told in Vicksburg would have been even less flattering to the strategic ability of the commander.

As it was, he had simply made a bad failure, and given the South two months' respite from the crushing pressure he was yet to apply. For the pet scheme of the North was but foiled—not ruined; and her whole power sang but the one refrain—Delenda est Atlanta!

And those two months could not be utilized to much effect by the South. Worn in resources, supplies—in everything but patient endurance, she still came forth from the dark doubts the winter had raised, hopeful, if not confident; calm, if conscious of the portentous clouds lowering upon her horizon.

Meanwhile, Grant, elevated to a lieutenant-generalcy, had been transferred to the Potomac frontier; and men, money, supplies—without stint or limit—had been placed at his disposal.

On the 1st February, Mr. Lincoln had called for 500,000 men; and on the 14th March for 200,000 more!

General Grant, himself, testified to the absolute control given him, in a letter to Mr. Lincoln, under date of 1st May, '64—from Culpeper C. H., which concludes: "I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been granted without any explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, that the fault is not with you."

With these unlimited resources, he was given almost unlimited power; and the jubilant North crowed as loudly as it had before Manassas, the Seven Days, or Fredericksburg.

In Richmond all was quiet. The Government had done all it could, and the people had responded with a generous unanimity that ignored all points of variance between it and them. All the supplies that could be collected and forwarded, under the very imperfect systems, were sent to the armies; all the arms that could be made, altered or repaired, were got ready; and every man not absolutely needed elsewhere—with the rare exceptions of influence and favoritism openly defying the law—was already at the front.

And seeing that all was done as well as might be, the Capital waited—not with the buoyant hopefulness of the past—but with patient and purposeful resolve.

And the ceaseless clang of preparation, cut by the ceaseless yell of anticipated triumph, still echoed over the Potomac—ever nearer and ever louder. Then, by way of interlude, on the 28th March, came the notorious Dahlgren raid. Though Kilpatrick was demoralized and driven back by the reserves in the gunless works; though Custar's men retired before the furloughed artillerists and home guards; and though Dahlgren's picked cavalry were whipped in the open field by one-fourth their number of Richmond clerks and artisans!—boys and old men who had never before been under fire—still the object of that raid remains a blot even upon the page of this uncivilized warfare. It were useless to enter into details of facts so well and clearly proved. That the orders of Dahlgren's men were to release the prisoners, burn, destroy and murder, the papers found on his dead body showed in plainest terms.

No wonder, then, that many in Richmond drew comfort from soothing belief in special Providence, when three trained columns of picked cavalry were turned back in disgraceful flight, by a handful of invalids, old men and boys!

The feeling in Richmond against the raiders was bitter and universal. Little vindictive, in general, the people clamored that arson and murder—as set forth in Dahlgren's orders—merited more serious punishment than temporary detention and highflown denunciation. The action of the Government in refusing summary vengeance on the cavalrymen captured, was indubitably just and proper. Whatever their object, and whatever their orders, they were captured in arms and were but prisoners of war; and, besides, they had not really intended more than dozens of other raiders had actually accomplished on a smaller scale.

But the people would not see this. They murmured loudly against the weakness of not making these men an example. And more than one of the papers used this as the handle for violent abuse of the Government and of its chief.

At last all preparations were complete; and the northern army—as perfect in equipment, drill and discipline as if it had never been defeated—came down to the Rapidan.

Grant divided his army into three corps, under Hancock, Warren and Sedgwick; and on the 5th May, his advance crossed the river, only to find Lee quietly seated in his path. Then commenced that series of battles, unparalleled for bloody sacrifice of men and obstinacy of leader—a series of battles that should have written General Grant the poorest strategist who had yet inscribed his name on the long roll of reverses. And yet, by a strange fatality, they resulted in making him a hero to the unthinking masses of his countrymen.

Lee's right rested on the Orange road; and an attempt, after the crossing, to turn it, was obstinately repulsed during the entire day, by Heth and Wilcox. During the night Hancock's corps crossed the river, and next morning received a fierce assault along his whole line. The fighting was fierce and obstinate on both sides; beating back the right and left of Hancock's line, while sharply repulsed on the center (Warren's). Still his loss was far heavier than ours, and the result of the battles of the Wilderness was to put some 23,000 of Grant's men hors de combat; to check him and to force a change of plan at the very threshold of his "open door to Richmond." For next day (7th May) he moved toward Fredericksburg railroad, in a blind groping to flank Lee.

It is curious to note the different feeling in Washington and Richmond on receipt of the news. In the North—where the actual truth did not reach—there was wild exultation. The battles of the Wilderness were accounted a great victory; Lee was demoralized and would be swept from the path of the conquering hero; Grant had at last really found the "open door!" In Richmond there was a calm and thankful feeling that the first clinch of the deadly tug had resulted in advantage. Waning confidence in the valor of men, and discretion of the general, was strengthened, and a somewhat hopeful spirit began to be infused into the people. Still they felt there would be a deadlier strain this time than ever before, and that the fresh and increasing thousands of the North could be met but by a steadily diminishing few—dauntless, tireless and true—but still how weak! Yet there was no give to the southern spirit, and—as ever in times of deadliest strain and peril—it seemed to rise more buoyant from the pressure.

Next came the news of those fearful fights at Spottsylvania, on the 8th and 9th—in which the enemy lost three to our one—preceding the great battle of the 12th May. By a rapid and combined attack the enemy broke Lee's line, captured a salient with Generals Ed Johnson and George H. Stewart and part of their commands, and threatened, for the time, to cut his army in two. But Longstreet and Hill sent in division after division from the right and left, and the fight became general and desperate along the broken salient. The Yankees fought with obstinacy and furious pluck. Charge after charge was broken and hurled back. On they came again—ever to the shambles! Night fell on a field piled thick with bodies of the attacking force; in front of the broken salient was a perfect charnel-house!

By his own confession, Grant drove into the jaws of death at Spottsylvania over 27,000 men! But his object was, for the second time, utterly frustrated; and again he turned to the left—still dogged and obstinate—still seeking to flank Lee.

On the 14th, Grant was again repulsed so sharply that his advance withdrew; and then the "greatest strategist since Napoleon" struck out still for his cherished left; and, leaving "the open door," passed down the Valley of the Rappahannock.

Lee's calm sagacity foresaw the enemy's course, and on the 23d Grant met him face to face, in a strong position near the North Anna. Blundering upon Lee's lines, throwing his men blindly against works that were proved invincible, he was heavily repulsed in two attacks—with aggregate loss amounting to a bloody battle. Failing in the second attack (on the 25th) Grant swung off—still to the left—and crossing the Pamunkey two days later, took up strong position near Cold Harbor on the last day of May.

Lee also moved down to face Grant, throwing his works up on a slight curve extending from Atlee's, on the Central Railroad, across the old Cold Harbor field—averaging some nine miles from Richmond. Our general was satisfied with the results of the campaign thus far; the army was buoyant and confident, and the people were more reliant than they had been since Grant had crossed the Rapidan. They felt that the nearness of his army to Richmond in no sense argued its entrance into her coveted defenses; and memories of Seven Pines, and of that other Cold Harbor, arose to comfort them.

In the North, great was the jubilee. It was asserted that Grant could now crush Lee and capture his stronghold at a single blow; that the present position was only the result of his splendid strategy and matchless daring; and the vapid boast, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer"—actually uttered while he was blindly groping his way, by the left, to the Pamunkey!—was swallowed whole by the credulous masses of the North. They actually believed that Grant's position was one of choice, not of necessity; and that Lee's movement to cover Richmond from his erratic advance—though it ever presented an unbroken front to him, and frequently drove him back with heavy loss—was still a retreat!

Both sides can look now calmly and critically at this campaign—seemingly without a fixed plan, and really so hideously costly in blood. When Grant crossed the Rapidan, he could have had no other intention than to sweep Lee from his front; and either by a crushing victory, or a forced retreat, drive him toward Richmond. Failing signally at the Wilderness, he abandoned this original plan and took up the Fredericksburg line. Here again the disastrous days of Spottsylvania foiled him completely; and he struck for the Tappahannock and Fort Royal line. Lee's emphatic repulse of his movement on the North Anna again sent Grant across the Pamunkey; and into the very tracks of McClellan two years before!

But there was one vast difference. McClellan had reached this base with no loss. Grant, with all McClellan's experience to teach him, had not reached this point at a cost of less than 70,000 men!

Had he embarked his troops in transports and sailed up the river, Grant might have landed his army at the White House in twenty-four hours; and that without the firing of a shot. But he had chosen a route that was to prove him not only the greatest strategist of the age, but the most successful as well. The difference of the two was simply this: he took twenty-six days instead of one; he fought nine bloody engagements instead of none; he made four separate changes in his digested plan of advance; and he lost 70,000 men to gain a position a condemned general had occupied two years before without a skirmish!

But the people of the North did not see this. They were only allowed partial reports of losses and changes of plan; they were given exaggerated statements of the damage done to Lee and of his dire strait; and the fact of Grant's proximity to the Rebel Capital was made the signal for undue and premature rejoicing. He was already universally declared the captor of Richmond, by a people willing to accept a fact with no thought of its cost; to accept a result for the causes that produced it.

But Grant was now in a position when he could not afford to await the slow course of siege operations. He could not allow time for the hubbub at the North to die away and reflection to take its place. Blood to him was no thicker than water; and he must vindicate the boasts of his blind admirers—cost thousands of lives though it might. Once more he marshaled his re-enforced ranks, only to hurl them into the jaws of death. For though worn away by the fearful friction of numbers—melted slowly in the fiery furnace of battle—the little Confederate force sat behind its works, grim, defiant—dangerous as ever!

Could Grant crush out that handful by the pure weight of his fresh thousands—could he literally hurl enough flesh and blood against it to sweep it before him—then the key of every road to Richmond was in his hands! So, on the morning of the 3d of June, Hancock's corps rushed to the assault.

Impetuous and fierce, the charge broke Breckinridge's line. Fresh men poured in and, for a moment, the works were in the enemy's hands. But it was only for a moment. They rallied, relief came—the conflict was fierce and close—but it was short. When the smoke rose, Hancock's line was broken and retreating. Again and again he rallied it splendidly, only to be hurled back each time with deadlier slaughter. On the other points Warren and Burnside had been driven back with terrible loss; and along the whole southern line the death-dealing volley into the retreating ranks rang the joyous notes of victory. Grant had played the great stake of his campaign and lost it!

He had lost it completely, and in an incredibly short time. Near 30,000 men told the horrid story of that ferocious hurling of flesh and blood against earthworks. Near one-fifth of his whole force had paid for his last great blunder, while the Confederate loss was less than one-tenth his own!

Even McClellan's line had failed the sledge-hammer strategist, and nothing was left but to transfer his army to the south side of the James. Lingering with dogged pertinacity on his slow retreat—turning at every road leading to the prize he yearned for, only to be beaten back—Grant finally crossed the river with his whole force on the 13th of June.

The great campaign was over. It had been utterly foiled at every point; had been four times turned into a new channel only to be more signally broken; and had ended in a bloody and decisive defeat that left Grant no alternative but to give up his entire plan and try a new one on a totally different line. For the southern arms it had been one unbroken success from the Rapidan to Cold Harbor; for though sometimes badly hurt, the Confederates had never once been driven from an important position; had never once failed to turn the enemy from his chosen line of advance—and had disabled at the least calculation 120,000 of his men at the cost of less than 17,000 of their own!

Such was the southern view, at the moment, of this campaign of invasion; as unparalleled in the history of war, as was that of Stonewall Jackson in the Valley. Such is the view of southern thinkers, to-day; and it is backed by the clearest judgment and calmest criticism of the North.

That success was made the test of merit; that attrition at last wore away unre-enforced resistance; that highest honors in life, and national sorrow in death, were rewards of a man—truly great in many regards, if justly measured; all these are no proof that General Grant was either a strategist, or a thinker; no denial that his Rapidan campaign—equally in its planning and its carrying out—was a bald and needlessly-bloody failure!

And, realizing this at the supreme moment, can it be wondered that the people of Richmond, as well as the victorious little army, grew hopeful once more? Is it strange that—mingled with thanksgivings for deliverance, unremitting care of the precious wounded, and sorrow for the gallant dead of many a Virginia home—there rose a solemn joyousness over the result, that crowned the toil, the travail and the loss?

And so the South, unrefreshed but steadfast, girded her loins for the new wrestle with the foe, now felt to be implacable!

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"THE LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH."

It is essential to a clear understanding of the events, directly preceding the fall of the Confederacy, to pause here and glance at the means with which that result was so long delayed, but at last so fully accomplished.

From official northern sources, we learn that General Grant crossed the Rapidan with three corps, averaging over 47,000 men. Therefore, he must have fought the battles of the Wilderness with at least 140,000 men. At that time the total strength of General Lee's morning report did not show 46,000 men for duty. Between the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, Grant was re-enforced to the extent of near 48,000 picked men; and again at Cold Harbor with near 45,000 more. Northern figures admit an aggregate of 97,000 re-enforcement between the Rapidan and the James! In that time, Lee, by the junction of Breckinridge and all the fragments of brigades he could collect, received less than 16,000 re-enforcement; and even the junction with Beauregard scarcely swelled his total additions over 20,000.

Grant's army, too, was composed of the picked veterans of the North—for his Government had accepted large numbers of hundred-day men for local and garrison duty, that all the seasoned troops might be sent him. Yet with an aggregate force of 234,000 men, opposed to a total of less than 63,000, General Grant failed signally in the plan, or plans of his campaign—losing in twenty-six days, and nine heavy fights and several skirmishes, seven men for one of General Lee's!

Can any candid thinker analyze these results and then believe Grant a strategist—a great soldier—anything but a pertinacious fighter? Can one realize that anything but most obstinate bungling could have swung such an army round in a complete circle—at a loss of over one-half of its numbers—to a point it could have reached in twenty-four hours, without any loss whatever? For the soldiers of the North, in this disastrous series of blunders, fought with constancy and courage. Beaten day after day by unfailing troops in strong works, they ever came again straight at those impregnable positions, against which obstinate stolidity, or blind rage for blood, drove them to the slaughter. Hancock's men especially seemed to catch inspiration from their chivalric leader. Broken and beaten at the Wilderness—decimated at Spottsylvania, they still were first in the deadly hail of Cold Harbor—breaking our line and holding it for a moment. Sedgwick and Warren, too—though the victim of unjust prejudice, if not of conspiracy—managed their corps with signal ability, in those ceaseless killings into which Grant's "strategy" sent them.

Nor was the immense superiority of numbers already shown, all. For this main advance—like every other of General Grant's—had co-operating columns all around it. Add to the men under his immediate command, those of the adjunct forces under his inspiration—Butler, 35,000, Hunter, 28,000 and Sigel, 10,000—and there foots up a grand total of 307,000 men!

We may, therefore, consider that General Lee, in the summer campaign of 1864, kept at bay and nullified the attack of 307,000 men with scarcely one-fifth their number; not exceeding 63,000![1]

While Grant was engaged in his pertinacious failures to flank Lee, General Sheridan—whose fame as a cavalry leader was already in the mouths of men in such pet names as "Little Phil" and "Cavalry Sheridan"—made a raid of considerable proportions toward Richmond. Flanking Lee upon the right, he proceeded over the North and South Anna, damaging the railroads at Beaver Dam and Ashland stations. Thence he moved toward Richmond, but was met at Yellow Tavern by General Stuart with a small body of his cavalry and a hastily-collected force of infantry. A sharp engagement resulted in forcing the enemy off; when he passed down the James to Turkey Island, where he joined Butler's forces.

But the fight had one result far more serious to the South—the death of General J. E. B. Stuart—the gallant and popular leader of Confederate cavalry; so ill to be spared in those days of watchful suspense to come, when General Lee keenly felt the loss of "the eyes of the army."

During the whole fight the sharp and continuous rattle of carbines, broken by the clear boom of field artillery, was distinctly heard in Richmond; and her defenseless women were long uncertain what the result would be. They knew nothing of the force that was attacking, nor of that which was defending their homes; every man was away save the aged and maimed—and the tortures of doubt and suspense were added to the accustomed strain of watching the end of the fight. When the news came there was deep thankfulness; but it was solemn and shadowed from the sorrow that craped the victory.

Meantime, General Sigel had threatened the Valley with a heavy force; but, in mid-May he had been met by General Breckinridge and was defeated with such loss of men and munitions, that he retreated precipitately across the Shenandoah. The co-operation of Sigel was virtually at an end.

But the more important co-operation had been equally unsuccessful. Simultaneously with Grant's passage of the Rapidan, General Butler, with an army of 35,000 men and a fleet of iron-clads, double-enders, gunboats and transports sufficient for a war with England, sailed up the James. This force was intended to proceed direct to Richmond, or to march into undefended Petersburg, as the case might seem best to warrant. The land forces disembarked at Bermuda Hundred and, after fortifying heavily on the line of Howlett's House, made serious demonstrations direct on Drewry's Bluff. Butler supposed that, the defenses being entirely uncovered by the drain of men for Lee's army, he could carry them with ease. In this hope he relied much upon the powerful aid of the fleet; but Admiral Lee, ascending in a double-ender, lost his pioneer-boat, the "Commodore Jones" and very nearly his own flag-ship, by a torpedo, opposite Signal Station. This stopped the advance of the fleet, as the river was supposed to be sown with torpedoes.

Nowise daunted, General Butler—like the true knight and chivalrous leader his entire career proves him to be—drew his line closer round the coveted stronghold. But on the 16th of May, Beauregard sallied out and struck the hero of New Orleans so suddenly and so sharply that he drove him, with heavy loss and utter demoralization, clear from his advanced lines to Bermuda Hundred. Only the miscarriage of a part of the plan, entrusted to a subordinate general, saved Butler's army from complete destruction.

As it was, he there remained "bottled up," until Grant's peculiar strategy had swung him round to Petersburg; and then the "bottle-imp" was released.

Seeing himself thus foiled on every hand—his magnificent plans utterly crushed, and his immense numbers unavailing—Grant struck into new combinations. Hunter had already penetrated into West Virginia as far as Staunton; and hounding on his men with the savagery of the bloodhound, was pushing on for Lynchburg and the railroad lines of supply adjacent to it. Grant at once detached Sheridan with a heavy force, to operate against the lines from Gordonsville and Charlottesville.

Simultaneously he, himself, was to strike a resistless blow at Petersburg; and thus with every avenue of supply cut off, the leaguered Capital must soon—from very weakness—drop into eager hands stretched out to grasp her.

On the 16th and 17th June, there were sharp and heavily-supported attacks upon portions of the Confederate line before Petersburg. The expectation evidently was to drive them in by sheer weight; for it was known only that part of Lee's forces had crossed the river, and the line was one of immense extent—requiring three times his whole force to man it effectively.

But, as ever before, General Grant underrated his enemy; and, as ever before, his cherished theory of giving six lives for one to gain his point failed. Both attacks were heavily repulsed. Still holding to that theory, however, Grant attacked the whole Confederate front at dawn of the 18th. Driven back with heavy slaughter, the men were again sent in. Four times that day they rallied and came well up to the works; and four times they were sent back reeling and bleeding. Even Grant's obstinacy could not drive them again into certain destruction; and the assault on Petersburg had failed utterly, at the cost of 14,000 men for the experiment.

On that same day, Hunter was driven back from an assault on Lynchburg, and sent in disgraceful rout through West Virginia.

Hampton, too, had done his share as ever in the long war. He had caught Sheridan at Trevellian's Station, and compelled him to retreat and entirely abandon his part of Grant's new programme; and a little later he came upon Kautz and Wilson—in a railroad raid below Petersburg—and defeated them disastrously, capturing their trains, artillery and a large proportion of their men.

Thus, by July, these rough and repeated lessons had taught even General Grant that hammering with flesh and blood upon earthworks was too costly; that barn-burning and railroad-tearing cavalry were not effectual to reduce the city that had so laughed to scorn his brilliant tactics of the left flank!

A more disgusted, if not a wiser man, he sat down and fortified for a regular siege; as fully convinced as ever that the blood of the soldiers was the seed of the war; as fixed in his theory that he could spare seven lives for one and gradually by this fearful "swapping, with boot," reduce the capital he had failed to win by soldierly methods or skillful combination.

And the southern people felt that was the test to be applied to them now. Bayonet and steel, rapine and torch had failed; but now the process of pulverizing was to come. "Southern blood!" was General Grant's war-cry—"Southern blood by the drop, if it take rivers of ours. Southern lives by the score—and we can well pay for them with the hundred!"

And, looking the alternative squarely in the face, the southern people for the last time girded their loins for the shock; feeling they could do what men might and when they could no longer do—they could die!

Once more the tide of battle had rolled away from Richmond; but it surged up, redder and rougher, against her sister city. And staunch little Petersburg braced herself to meet its advancing waves—ever offering to them her dauntless breast and ever riding above them, breathless but victorious. Old men with one foot in the grave—boys with one foot scarce out of the cradle, stood side by side, with the bronzed veterans of Lee's hundred fights. Women sat quiet, the shells of Grant's civilized warfare tearing through their houses and through the hospitals. And fearless for themselves, they worked steadily on, nursing the wounded and the sick; giving from their daily-decreasing store with self-forgetfulness; encouraging the weak by their presence and their courage.

But not alone the fierce sounds immediately around them claimed the attention of the people of the Capital. From North Georgia came the hoarse echo of renewed strife; and they felt, in sober truth, more immediate anxiety for the result there than at their own doors. Inured to danger and made familiar with its near approach, the people of Virginia looked calmly forward to the most fearful shock of battle, if it was nothing more. They knew the crushing force of Grant's numbers, but the danger was tangible and they could see a possible issue out of it, through blood and sacrifice. But they knew and felt that Atlanta was the back door to Richmond. Let the enemy once enter that and divide the spinal column of the Confederacy, and what hope was there! For a brief space the maimed and dying body might writhe with final strength; the quivering arms strike fierce, spasmodic blows; but no nourishment could come—the end must be death—and death from inanition!

The people knew and felt this fully. They were perfectly aware that, should Atlanta fall and the enemy penetrate to our rear lines of communication, the cause was lost. We might make a fierce resistance for the moment; but without supplies, all organized plan must cease. And the wildest hope indulged in that event was the possibility of a detached and guerrilla warfare that would make the country untenable.

Therefore, every eye was turned toward Dalton, where Johnston's little army now was—every ear was strained to catch the first echo of the thunder about to roll so ominously among the Georgia mountains.

Upon General Grant's elevation to the chief command, General W. T. Sherman had been left in charge in the West. Not discouraged by the failure of Grant's quadruple advance, two months before, Sherman divided his army—like that operating on the Rapidan—into three corps. Thomas, leading the center, or direct advance; Schofield, the left on the North-east, and McPherson the right on the South-west—he moved upon Dalton, almost simultaneously with Grant's passage of the Rapidan. And like Grant, he essayed a flank movement; but with far different result.

There was another point of similarity—the great disparity of numbers. Sherman could not have had in all, far short of 80,000 men; while Johnston's greatest exertions could not collect at Dalton an effective force of 35,000. Many of these, too, were local troops and raw levies, green and undisciplined; while Sherman's forces were the flower of the western army.

Such were the points of similarity; but there was one great difference known to the Confederate leaders and people. Sherman would use every advantage of strategy and combination, rather than attempt the sledge-hammer style of attack developed by Grant. And there was more to be dreaded from his quiet and cautious approach—with its accompanying care for human life, that would preserve his army—than from any direct assault, however vigorous. This was proved at the very outset; for his advance on Dalton was a piece of military tact that—unlike Grant's at the Wilderness—was founded upon sound calculation. McPherson was thrown so far round to the South-west as seriously to threaten Johnston's communications; and by the 8th of June, the latter was forced to evacuate Dalton and retire down Resaca Valley toward the line of the Etowah river.

This movement was accomplished with quiet and perfect ease; keeping ever a steady front to the enemy, pressing rapidly on.

Feeling that the fate of the whole cause was now vested in the little army left him to defend the great key—Atlanta—Johnston was great enough to resist the opportunities for glorious battle; to give up, without a struggle—which could only entail resultless waste of men—the rich tracts so valuable to us; to offer himself to the condemnation of unthinking censure—all to insure the safety of that vital organ of Confederate life.

On the 14th June, the enemy pressed heavily against temporary works in Resaca Valley and was twice repulsed, with heavy loss. Then Johnston turned upon him and gained a decisive advantage—driving him two miles. On the two succeeding days, his attempts amounted to scarcely more than skirmishes; and on the third our troops resumed, unmolested, their retreat along the line of the Etowah. By the end of the month Johnston had taken up a strong position, with his center resting upon Kenesaw Mountain; while the enemy had thrown up works, at some points nearer even than those at Petersburg.

At dawn on the 27th, Sherman attacked along the whole line, directing his main strength to Kenesaw Mountain. He was repulsed decisively on both flanks and with especial slaughter in the center; losing over 3,500 men. Next day Cleburne's division defeated McPherson's corps in a severe fight, inflicting even heavier loss than it had sustained at Kenesaw Mountain. But these fights—while retarding the enemy's advance and causing him a loss three times our own—were all nullified by Sherman's effective use of that flanking process, so strangely misused by his rival in Virginia. Those movements were but those of pawns upon the board; while the serious check to Johnston at Dalton—the flank movement upon his right—was repeated here. On the 4th of July he was flanked out of his mountain fastnesses and was falling back upon Atlanta.

There is no stronger proof of the hold General Johnston had upon the masses of the people and of their respectful confidence in his great ability, than their reception of this news. They had watched his long retreat almost without a fight; had seen the enemy penetrate almost to the heart of Georgia, occupying rich tracts of our most productive land, just ready for the harvest; and finally had heard him thundering at the very gates of Atlanta—to enter which they felt were death to us. And yet the people never murmured at their general, nor at the army he commanded. There was an unshaken conviction that he was doing his best; that his best was the best. But the Government had not forgotten nor forgiven General Johnston; and for wholly inexplicable reasons, he was summarily transferred from his command and replaced by General Hood, on the 18th of July.

People could not see the ground for Johnston's removal; for he had followed the very same line that had earned General Lee the wildest enthusiasm of the people, even while it gave him almost supreme control of the military power of the Confederacy. Lee had fallen back to his proper base—so had Johnston. The former had faced far greater odds and had inflicted far heavier punishment upon the enemy; but the latter had contended against strategic ability rather than blind force—against human sagacity rather than brute courage. And if Johnston had inflicted less damage, his wise abstinence from battle had saved many lives, invaluable now; and in the end he had placed his army in almost impregnable works around the great prize he was to guard. Foreseeing the result of his opponent's strategy, he had nullified it by seeking the position into which he would finally have been forced.

So far, the Virginia and the Georgia campaigns had been markedly similar in conduct and result. Both armies, driven by overwhelming numbers, had drawn their lines around their last strongholds; and there kept their enemy at bay. And had General Johnston been allowed to reap the reward of his clear foresight and patient abstinence—who can tell but the festering Lazarus might yet have risen whole, and defied the vast wealth of aggression hurled against it?

The universal and outspoken disgust of the people at the removal of Johnston, was in no sense referable to their objection to his successor. General Hood had forced their highest admiration, and bought their warmest wishes, with his brilliant courageous and his freely-offered blood. They knew him to be dauntless, chivalrous and beloved by his men; and, even if untried in a great command, they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. His first movements, too—seemingly so brilliant and dashing, compared to the more steady but resultful ones of Johnston—produced a thrill of pride and hope with all the people, save the thoughtful few, who felt we could not afford now to buy glory and victory unless it tended to the one result—safety.

On the 20th July Hood assumed the offensive. He struck the enemy's right heavily and with success; repeating the blow upon his extreme left, on the 22d. The advantage on both days was with the Confederates; they drove the enemy from his works, captured several thousand prisoners, and killed and wounded over 3,000 men. But there was no solid gain in these fights; and, the enemy shifting his line after them further to the east, there was another furious battle on the 28th day of July.

In this Hood was less successful, losing heavily and gaining little or no ground. The results of the fights at Atlanta were briefly these: Hood had broken the long and sagacious defensive course; the people were perhaps inspirited at the cost of over 4,000 invaluable men; and the enemy was taught that we were too weak to drive him from his line, or even to make any solid impression on him.

Feeling this—and secure in a line of communication with his base—Sherman sat doggedly and grimly down before Atlanta. He felt he could wait.

But the end came, before even the Federal leader could have expected. After the fights at Atlanta, Hood feared the cutting of his communications. He was fearful, lest the system that had forced Johnston from Dalton and Kenesaw Mountain might be made available against him here; and the very means he had adopted to prevent it precipitated the disaster. He divided his forces into two distinct armies—sending one, under Lieutenant-General Hardee, to Jonesboro, twenty-two miles away!

Sherman, aware of the movement—which had in fact resulted from his threatening of Hood's flank—forced his superior numbers wedge-like into the gap, and effectually separated the wings. Then he struck in detail. Hardee, at Jonesboro, failed to make any impression upon him on the 1st of September, while Hood—weakened and unable to check his movements on the left—was forced, on the 31st August, to decide upon the evacuation of Atlanta!