call the battery into line once more, and roll the guns over the cliff
into the river, and immediately afterwards, leaving the wagons there,
he would try to lead them across the mountain, and as far as they could go
in a body without being liable to capture, and then he should disband them,
and his responsibility for them would end. As it was necessary
to make some preparations he would now dismiss them to prepare
any rations they might have and get ready to march.

All this was in the formal manner of a common order of the day;
and the old Colonel had spoken in measured sentences, with little feeling
in his voice. Not a man in the line had uttered a word after the first sound,
half exclamation, half groan, which had burst from them at the announcement
of Lee's surrender. After that they had stood in their tracks
like rooted trees, as motionless as those on the mountain behind them,
their eyes fixed on their commander, and only the quick heaving
up and down the dark line, as of horses over-laboring, told of the emotion
which was shaking them. The Colonel, as he ended, half-turned to
his subordinate officer at the end of the dim line, as though he were about
to turn the company over to him to be dismissed; then faced the line again,
and taking a step nearer, with a sudden movement of his hands towards the men
as though he would have stretched them out to them, began again:

"Men," he said, and his voice changed at the word, and sounded like
a father's or a brother's, "My men, I cannot let you go so. We were neighbors
when the war began -- many of us, and some not here to-night;
we have been more since then -- comrades, brothers in arms; we have all stood
for one thing -- for Virginia and the South; we have all done our duty --
tried to do our duty; we have fought a good fight, and now it seems
to be over, and we have been overwhelmed by numbers, not whipped --
and we are going home. We have the future before us -- we don't know