a thought in any man's mind but that _his_ side would win and his own
life be spared.

And every woman, too, waving cheerful farewell to valiant lines of
marching gray or sturdy ranks of blue, had hoped the same for _her_
side.

But in war there is always a reckoning to pay. Always one contender
driven to the wall, his cities turned to ashes, his lands laid waste.
Always one depleted side which takes one last desperate stand in the
sight of blackened homes and outraged fields and fights on through ever
darkening days until the inevitable end is come.

And the end of the Confederacy was now almost in sight. Three years of
fighting and the Seceding States had been cut in twain, their armies
widely separated by the Union hosts. Advancing and retreating but always
fighting, month after month, year after year the men in gray had come at
last to the bitterest period of it all--when the weakened South was
slowly breaking under the weight of her brother foes--when the two
greatest of the armies battled on Virginia soil--battled and passed to
their final muster roll.

Of little need to tell of the privations which the pivotal state of the
Confederacy went through. If it were true that Virginia had been simply
one vast arsenal where every inhabitant had unfailingly done his part in
making war, it was also true that she had furnished many of its greatest
battlefields--and at what a frightful cost.

Everywhere were the cruel signs of destruction and want--in scanty
larder, patched, refurbished clothing, servantless homes--in dismantled