So they mourned, and looked fearfully to the coming hours, in town and country. In the old homesteads--poverty and despair. In the cities--wasting cares and sinking hearts. More than ever before, all the vile classes of society rioted and held sway. The forestallers and engrossers drove a busy trade. They seemed to feel that their “time was short”--that the night was coming, in which not even rascals could work! Supplies were hoarded, and doled out at famine prices to the famine-stricken community; not supplies of luxuries, but of the commonest necessaries of life. The portly extortioner did not invite custom, either. Once he had bowed and smirked behind his counter when a purchaser entered. Now, he turned his back coldly, went on reading his newspaper, scarce replied to the words addressed to him, and threw his goods on the counter with the air of one reluctantly conferring a favor. Foreboding had entered even the hearts of the forestaller and extortioner. They had sold their souls for gain, and that gain was turning to dross. As at the wave of a magician’s wand, their crisp new “Confederate notes” had become rags. The biter was bit. His gains were to count for nothing. Extortioner and victim were soon to be stripped equally naked--the cold blast of ruin was to freeze both alike. Thus, all things hastened toward the inevitable catastrophe. Brave hearts did not shrink, but they saw ruin striding on. Every thing crumbled--the Confederacy was staggering and gasping in the death agony. Day by day the cause was slowly, but certainly, being lost. Children cried aloud for bread--women moaned, and knelt, and prayed. Their last hope was leaving them. Lee’s army was starving and dying. Hour by hour, nearer and nearer came the roar of the gulf of destruction. A sort of stupor descended. The country--prostrate and writhing--tried to rise, but could not. The government knew not where to turn, or what course to pursue. Grant was growing in strength hourly. Lee’s little force was dwindling. Sherman was streaming through South Carolina. Grant was reaching out toward Five Forks. All-destroying war grinned hideously--on all sides stared gaunt Famine. The air jarred with the thunder of cannon. The days and nights blazed, and were full of wild cries--of shouts, groans, and reverberations. The ground shook--the grave yawned--the black cloud slowly drew on; that cloud from which the thunderbolt was about to fall. How to describe in a volume like this, now near its end, that terrible state of coma--that approaching cataclysm, in which all things, social, civil, and military were about to disappear! The whole fabric of society was going to pieces; every hour flamed with battles; tragic events jostled each other; blood gushed; a people were wailing; a victorious enemy were rushing on; the whole continent trembled; Lee was being swept away, in spite of every effort which he made to steady his feet--and that torrent was going to engulf a whole nation!