The croakers said that--and the brave hearts whom they insulted could not silence them. There were stout souls in black coats--but the croakers distilled their poison, working busily in the darkness. It was the croakers who bought up the supplies, and hoarded them in garrets, and retailed them in driblets, thereby causing the enormous prices which, according to them, foretold the coming downfall. They evaded the conscript officers; grew fat on their extortions; and one day you would miss them from their accustomed haunts--they had flitted across the Potomac, and were drinking their wine in New York, London, or Paris. Meanwhile, three classes of persons remained faithful to the death:--the old men, the army, and the women. The gray-beards were taking down their old guns and swords, and forming home-battalions, to fight the enemy to the death when his cavalry came to lay waste the country. The women were weaving homespun, knitting socks, nursing the wounded, and praying. They had never ceased to pray, nor had they lost the heart of hope. The croakers believed in success, and their patron saint was Mammon. The women believed in the justice of the cause, and in God. In 1861, they had cheered the soldiers, and waved their handkerchiefs, and rained bouquets. In 1862, they had sent brave words of encouragement, and bade their sons, and brothers, and husbands fight to the end. In 1863, they repeated that--sent the laggards back to the ranks--and when they were not sewing, or nursing the sick, were praying. O women of Virginia, and the great South to her farthest limits, there is nothing in all history that surpasses your grand record! You hoped, in the dark days as in the bright;--when bearded men shrunk, you fronted the storm unmoved! Always you hoped, and endured, and prayed for the land. Had the rest done their duty like the women and the army, the red-cross flag would be floating to-day in triumph! The army--that was unshaken. Gettysburg had not broken its strength, nor affected its stout manhood. Lee’s old soldiers believed in him after Gettysburg, in the winter of ‘63, as they had believed in him after Fredericksburg, in the winter of ‘62. They had confidence still in their great leader, and in their cause. The wide gaps in their ranks did not dismay them; want of food did not discourage them; hunger, hardships, nakedness, defeat,--they had borne these in the past, they were bearing them still, they were ready to bear them in the future. War did not fright them--though the coming conflict was plainly going to be more bitter than any before. The great array of Grant on the north bank of the Rapidan did not depress them--had they not met and defeated at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville a force as great, and could not they do it again?