The winds
carried away the sound of jests, and banjo notes. The long hours of
winter thus flew by like birds lost, one by one, in the night of the
past. Happy days! happy nights! I remember them still. Stuart is
dead--more than one of my dear companions have followed him--but their
voices sound again, their eyes again flash, their friendly smiles
linger in memory.
So the days fled by--and I wonder if our friends across the Rapidan,
who were going to crush us, were as gay as the folk about to be
crushed? The future looked stormy, but we laughed--and we did right,
did we not, friend? That mirth was not unseemly--not unworthy of
approval. It is evidence at least of "game," _non fractum esse fortuna
et retinere in rebus asperis, dignitatem_--is it not? Good fortune,
wealth, and success, are nothing compared to that. For my part, I would
rather have the equal mind in arduous things, than money in my purse,
or victory. The army of Northern Virginia had that in the winter of
1863, as they had had it in 1861 and '62, and were going to have it in
the dark year and black winter preceding April, 1865.
But I linger too long on those days at "Coon Hollow." The wave of war
had wafted us to that quiet nook; for a time, we laughed and sang; but
the storm was coming. Soon it struck us; and we left the harbor, driven
by the tempest.
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