He
had said little during the day, and said little now, but his voice was
as calm and measured, his eye as serene as before.
"This is a bad business, colonel!"[1] I had heard him say, at the
moment when the shell burst near him in the morning.
[Footnote 1: His words.]
I heard but one other allusion which he made to the situation.
"Well, colonel," he said to an officer, in his deep and sonorous voice,
"it has happened as I told them it would, at Richmond. The line has
been stretched until it has broken."[1]
[Footnote 1: His words.]
So, over the Hickory road, leading up the northern bank of the
Appomattox, in the direction of Lynchburg--amid the explosion of
magazines, surging upward like volcanoes, the old army of Northern
Virginia, reduced to fifteen thousand men, went forth, still defiant,
into the night.
XXIII.
WHAT I SAW FROM THE GRAVE OF STUART.
Three hours afterward I was in Richmond.
Sent with a message for General Ewell, I had taken the last train which
left for the capital, and reached the city toward midnight.
The first person whom I saw was Tom Herbert, who ran to meet me. His
face was pale, but his resolute smile still lit up the brave face.
"Come and wait on me, my dear old friend," he said; "I am to be married
to-night!"
And in a few words he informed me that Katy had consented to have the
ceremony performed before Tom followed General Lee southward.
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