Two or three expeditions which I made during that woeful period, gave me a good idea of the condition of the country. In September, 1864, I had traversed Virginia from Petersburg to Winchester, and had found the people--especially those of the lower Shenandoah Valley--still hopeful, brave, resolved to resist to the death. In January and February, 1865, my official duties carried me to the region around Staunton; to the mountains west of Lynchburg; and to the North Carolina border, south of Petersburg. All had changed. Everywhere I found the people looking blank, hopeless, and utterly discouraged. The shadow of the approaching woe seemed to have already fallen upon them. The army was as “game” as ever--even Early’s little handful, soon to be struck and dispersed by General Sheridan’s ten thousand cavalry. Everywhere, the soldiers laughed in the face of death. Each seemed to feel, as did the old statesman with whom I had conversed on that night at Richmond, that he was a sentinel on post, and must stand there to the last. The lava might engulf him, but he was “posted,” and must stand until relieved, by his commanding officer or death. It was the “poor private,” in his ragged jacket and old shoes, as well as the officer in his braided coat, who felt thus. For those private soldiers of the army of Northern Virginia were gentlemen. _Noblesse oblige_ was their motto; and they meant to die, musket in hand! Oh, soldiers of the army, who carried those muskets in a hundred battles!--who fought with them from Manassas, in 1861, to Appomattox, in 1865--you are the real heroes of the mighty struggle, and one comrade salutes you now, as he looked at you with admiration in old days! What I saw in those journeys was dreary enough; but however black may be the war-cloud, there is always the gleam of sunlight somewhere! We laughed now and then, reader, even in the winter of 1864-’5! I laugh still, as I think of the brave cannoneers of the horse artillery near Staunton--and of the fearless Breathed, their commander, jesting and playing with his young bull-dog, whom he had called “Stuart” for his courage. I hear the good old songs, all about “Ashby,” and the “Palmetto Tree,” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag”--songs sung with joyous voices in that dreary winter, as in other days, when the star of hope shone more brightly, and the future was more promising. At Lynchburg, where I encountered a number of old friends, songs still sweeter saluted me--from the lips of my dear companions, Major Gray and Captain Woodie. How we laughed and sang, on that winter night, at Lynchburg! Do you chant your sweet “Nora McShane” still, Gray? And you, Woodie, do you sing in your beautiful and touching tenor to-day,-- “The heart bowed down by deep despair. To weakest hopes will cling?” Across the years comes once more that magical strain; again I hear your voice, filled with the very soul of sadness, tell how “Memory is the only friend That grief can call its own!”