I shall refrain, however, from recording these reflections. If the reader will cast his eyes back over the pages of these memoirs, he will perceive that I have confined myself generally to the simple narration of events--seldom pausing to offer my own comments upon the scenes passing before me. Were I to do so, what an enormous volume I should write, and how the reader would be bored! Now, to bore a reader, is, in my eyes, one of the greatest crimes of which an author can be guilty. It is the unpardonable sin, indeed, in a writer. For which reason, and acting upon the theory that a drama ought to explain itself and be its own commentator, I spare the worthy reader of these pages all those reflections which I indulged in, after hearing General Davenant’s singular narrative. “Pride! pride!” I muttered, rising at the end of an hour. “I think I can understand that--exceptional as is this instance; but I wish I had heard who was the ‘real murderer’ of George Conway!” Having thus dismissed the subject, I set about drawing up my official report, and this charmingly common-place employment soon banished from my mind every more inviting subject! It was nearly ten days after this my first ride into the wilds of Dinwiddie, before I again set out to look after the cavalry. The end of October was approaching. Grant had continued to hammer away along his immense line of earth-works; and day by day, step by step, he had gone on extending his left in the direction of the Southside railroad. If the reader will keep this in view, he will understand every movement of the great adversaries. Grant had vainly attempted to carry Lee’s works by assault, or surprise,--his only hope of success now was to gradually extend his lines toward the Southside road; seize upon that great war artery which supplied life-blood to Lee’s army; and thus compel the Confederate commander to retreat or starve in his trenches. One thing was plain--that when Grant reached the Southside railroad, Lee was lost, unless he could mass his army and cut his way through the forces opposed to him. And this fact was so obvious, the situation was so apparent--that from the moment when the Weldon road was seized upon by General Grant, that officer and his great adversary never removed their eyes from the real point of importance, the true key of the lock--namely the Southside railroad, on Lee’s right.