"Yes, the Yanks got the bay horse, and my servants Joshua and Smith, and all my baggage, overcoats, and plunder. A private soldier pinned this blanket around me last night, and I found this hat when I was coming off the field.”

He laughed heartily at his own plight. I have never since seen a catch-pin half so large as that with which his blanket was gathered at the throat. As we passed down the road to General Lee's headquarters, the roads and the fields were filled with stragglers. They moved looking behind them, as if they expected to be attacked and harried by a pursuing foe. Demoralization, panic, abandonment of all hope, appeared on every hand. Wagons were rolling along without any order or system. Caissons and limber-chests, without commanding officers, seemed to be floating aimlessly upon a tide of disorganization. Rising to his full height, casting a glance around him like that of an eagle, and sweeping the horizon with his long arm and bony forefinger, my father exclaimed, "This is the end!" It is impossible to convey an idea of the agony and the bitterness of his words and gestures.

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We found General Lee on the rear portico of the house that I have mentioned. He had washed his face in a tin basin, and stood drying his beard with a coarse towel as we approached. "General Lee," exclaimed my father, my poor, brave men are lying on yonder hill more dead than alive. For more than a week they have been fighting day and night, without food, and, by God, sir, they shall not move another step until somebody gives them something to eat!"

"Come in, general," said General Lee soothingly. They deserve something to eat, and shall have it; and meanwhile you shall share my breakfast." He disarmed everything like defiance by his kindness.

It was but a few moments, however, before my father launched forth in a fresh denunciation of the conduct of General Bushrod Johnson in the engagement of the 6th. I am satisfied that General Lee felt as he did; but, assuming an air of mock severity, he said, "General, are you aware that you are liable to court-martial and execution for insubordination and disrespect toward your commanding officer?"

My father looked at him with lifted eyebrows and flashing eyes, and exclaimed: "Shot! You can't afford to shoot the men who fight for cursing those who run away. Shot! I wish you would shoot me. If you don't, some Yankee probably will within the next twenty-four hours.” Growing more serious, General Lee inquired what he thought of the situation.

"Situation?" said the bold old man. "There is no situation! Nothing remains, General Lee, but to put your poor men on your poor mules and send them home in time for spring ploughing. This army is hopelessly whipped, and is fast becoming demoralized. These men have already endured more than I believed flesh and blood could stand, and I say to you, sir, emphatically, that to prolong the struggle is murder, and the blood of every man who is killed from this time forth is on your head, General Lee."

This last expression seemed to cause General Lee great pain. With a gesture of remonstrance, and even of impatience, he protested: "Oh, general, do not talk so wildly. My burdens are heavy enough. What would the country think of me, if I did what you suggest?" "Country be dd!" was the quick reply. "There is no country. There has been no country, general, for a You are the country to these men. They have fought for you. They have shivered through a long

year or more.

winter for you. Without pay or clothes, or care of any sort, their devotion to you and faith in you have been the only things which have held this army together. If you demand the sacrifice, there are still left thousands of us who will die for you. You know the game is desperate beyond redemption, and that, if you so announce, no man or government or people will gainsay your decision. That is why I repeat that the blood of any man killed hereafter is upon your head."

General Lee stood for some time at an open window, looking out at the throng now surging by upon the roads and in the fields, and made no response. Then, turning his attention to me, he said cheerfully that he was glad my father's plight was not so bad as he had thought it might be, at the time of our conversation the night before. After a pause, he wrote upon a piece of paper a few words to the effect that he had talked with me, and that I would make a verbal report. If occasion arose, he would give further advices. "This," said he, "you will deliver to the President. I fear to write, lest you be captured, for those people are already several miles above Farmville. You must keep on the north side to a ford eight miles above here, and be careful about crossing even there." He always referred to the enemy as "those people." Then he bade me adieu, and asked my father to come in and share his breakfast.

I hugged my father in the presence of General Lee, and I saw a kindly look in his eyes as he watched us. Remembering that my father had no horse, I said, "Take my mare. I can easily get another."

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"What!" said he, laughing, " a dispatch-bearer giving away his horse! No, sir. That is too pretty a little animal to make a present to a Yankee. I know they will bag us all, horse, foot, and dragoons, before long. No.

I can walk as well as anybody. Have you any chewing tobacco?"

I was immensely flattered at this request, and gave him a plug of excellent tobacco. It was the first time that he had recognized me as entitled to the possession of all the "modern improvements" of a soldier.

And so I left them. As I rode along in search of the ford to which General Lee had directed me, I felt that I was in the midst of the wreck of that immortal army which, until now, I had believed to be invincible.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE END

EIGHT miles of brisk riding carried me beyond the flotsam and jetsam of the Army of Northern Virginia. I was alone in the meadows on the north of the Appomattox River. The sun shone brightly, and under the wooded bluffs upon the opposite bank of the narrow stream the little valley up which my route led was warm and still. The dogwood was beginning to bloom; the grass near the river banks was showing the first verdure of spring; the willows overhanging the stream were purpling and swelling with buds. A cock grouse among the laurels was drumming to his mate, and more than once I heard the gobble of the wild turkey. Behind me, in the distance, were sounds of artillery; from time to time, our guns opened to hold the enemy in check, or he, pursuing, availed himself of some eminence to shell our retreating masses. In due season the designated ford was reached. The little mare, her neck and flanks warm but not heated with exercise, waded into the stream up to her knees, and, plunging her nose into the water, quenched her thirst. A gray squirrel, startled from a hickory near the ford, ran out upon a limb, swung himself to another tree, and scampered away through the sunlight and the shadows to gain his castle in the hollow oak upon the hillside. In a neighboring cedar, a redbird (cardinal grosbeak), warmed by the sunlight, uttered the soft call with which he wooes his mate in springtime.