I shrink from dwelling on the events of that dreary epoch. Every day I lost some friend. One day it was the brave John Pegram, whom I had known and loved from his childhood; the next day it was some other, whose disappearance left a gap in my life which nothing thenceforth could fill. I pass over all that. Why recall more of the desolate epoch than is necessary? For the rest that is only a momentary laugh that I have indulged in. Events draw near, at the memory of which you sigh--or even groan perhaps--to-day, when three years have passed. For this page is written on the morning of April 8, 1868. This day, three years ago, Lee was staggering on in sight of Appomattox. X. AEGRI SOMNIA.--MARCH, 1865. These letters and figures arouse terrible memories--do they not, reader? You shudder as you return in thought to that epoch, provided always that you then wore the gray, and not the blue. If you wore the blue, you perhaps laugh. The South had reached, in this month of March, one of those periods when the most hopeful can see, through the black darkness, no single ray of light. Throughout the winter, the government had made unceasing efforts to bring out the resources of the country--efforts honest and untiring, if not always judicious--but as the days, and weeks, and months wore on, it became more and more evident that the hours of the Confederacy were numbered. The project of employing negro troops, which Congress long opposed, had been adopted at last, but only in time to be too late. The peace commissioners had held their interview with Lincoln, but effected nothing. The enemy continually advanced toward the achievement of their end. Sherman had safely made his famous “march to the sea”--Savannah and Charleston had fallen--the western army was about to unite with the army of Grant at Petersburg. There the great game went on, but the end was near. Lee had attempted, late in February, to evacuate his lines, but was overruled. His army was reduced to about forty thousand, while Grant’s numbered about one hundred and fifty thousand. The Confederate troops were almost naked, and had scarce food enough to sustain life. They fought still, in the trenches, along the great line of works, but it was plain, as Lee said, that the line was stretched so far, that a very little more would snap it.