The great array of Grant on the
north bank of the Rapidan did not depress them--had they not met and
defeated at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville a force as great, and
could not they do it again?
So they lay in their camps on the Rapidan, in that cold winter of
1863--a little army of ragged and hungry men, with gaunt faces, wasted
forms, shoeless feet; with nothing to encourage them but the cause,
past victories, and Lee's presence. That was much; what was enough,
however, was the blood in their veins; the inspiration of the great
race of fighting men from whom they derived their origin. Does any one
laugh at that? The winner will--but the truth remains.
That ragged and famished army came of a fighting race. It was starving
and dying, but it was going to fight to the last.
When the cannon began to roar in May, 1864, these gaunt veterans were
in line, with ragged coats, but burnished bayonets. When Lee, the gray
cavalier, rode along their lines, the woods thundered with a cheer
which said, "Ready!"
XVI.
HAMMER AND RAPIER.
I pass to the great collision of armies in the first days of May.
Why say any thing of that dark episode called "Dahlgren's raid?" A full
account would be too long--a brief sketch too short. And whatever our
Northern friends may think, it is not agreeable to us to dwell on that
outrage.
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