"Yes."

"But how? People will not just let them walk away!

"Walk away! Oh, little woman, if it could be brought around
that way the threatening clouds would not be so dark ahead! 'Just walk
away.' The President is offering to find a way out. One is to
'compensate' owners out of Government funds for the release of their
slaves; another is sending them to some warm country for colonization.
Of course, he would ask Congress for an appropriation for this."

For long hours they sat reading the latest news in the day's
paper and discussing the war reports with a very solemn foreboding of
coming events.


CHAPTER V

WHEN the Civil War broke out the women of the South blanched with the
terrible ordeal before them, but never for one moment doubted but that
their beloved ones would come out of it all victorious. To them it was
not conceivable that a cause so plainly one of individual rights could
be lost. Sacrifice upon sacrifice was cheerfully made, even gloried in
by these wonderful women of the South in 1861 and to the bitter end.
Delicately nurtured women denied themselves comforts, sleep, food and
drink; they were reduced to personal hardships which were met and borne
with a sublime fortitude.

When it was all over those families which had possessed wealth