“Hm! Old Blizzard’s gallant all right, and we’re devoted all right, and they’re invaders all right, and we certainly made them clear out of the Yazoo Valley, but somehow I didn’t see those thousands slain! Newspapers always do exaggerate.” “That’s true. Nature and education both. North and South—especially North. That New York paper, for instance, that we got from the picket at Chickasaw—” “The one that said we tortured prisoners?” “No. The one that said we mutilated the dead. They’re all Ananiases. Go on, Borrow.” “‘Farragut has succeeded in running the batteries at Fort Hudson. The mouth of the Red River—’” “We know all that. What ’re they doing in Virginia?” “Marse Robert and Stonewall seem to be holding south bank of Rappahannock. Fighting Joe Hooker on the other side’s got something up his sleeve. He and ‘the finest army on the planet’ look like moving. The paper says Sedgwick’s tried a crossing below Fredericksburg, but that General Lee’s watching Ely and Germanna fords. Here’s an account of Kelly’s Ford and the death of Pelham—” “Read that,” said the men. Edward left them reading, listening, and making murmured comment. At a little distance rose a copse overrun with yellow jessamine. Entering this, he sat down at the foot of a cedar and, laying by the home letters and the letters from comrades, opened one written on thin, greyish paper, in a hand slender yet bold:— _My Heart_,— I am glad that it was you who found him. _O Louis, Louis, Louis!_... I am not going to write about him.... I loved him, and he loved me.... Oh, we give, we give in this war! I hear from my father, broken-hearted for his son, tender and loving as ever to his daughter. I hear, too, from your father—a letter to keep forever, praising you to me so nobly! And Judith Cary has written. I shall love her well,—oh, well! Where are you this stormy night? I sit before the fire, in the gilt chair, and the magnolia strikes against the window pane, and I hear, far off, the thunder and shouting, and if I could I would stay the bullets with my hands. The enemy is cutting the levees on this side, up and down the river. If they cut a certain one, it will be to our disaster at Cape Jessamine. The negroes grow frightened, and now every day they leave. I did not mean to tell you all this. It is nothing. Where are you this night of rainy wind? I look into the fire which is low at this hour, and I see ranged cannon, and banners that rise and fall. And may the morning—and may the morning bring me a letter! Thine, all thine, DÉSIRÉE GAILLARD. A week later, having been granted the furlough for which he asked, he found himself below Natchez, bargaining with two black ferrymen to take him across the river.