So we endeavored to play out the play with dignity and self-possession, watching the long train of foragers coming in every day by every high-road and by-way leading from the country, laden with the substance of our friends and neighbors for many miles, (though in many cases, let me say, the Government made payment for food and forage taken after peace was declared,) watching them with such feelings as made us half ashamed of our own immunity, wondering where it would all end, and that we should have lived to see such a day; reviewing the height from which we had fallen, and struggling, I say, to wear a look of proud composure, when all our assumed stoicism and resignation was put to flight by the appearance, on a certain day, of a squad of unarmed men in gray, dusty and haggard, walking slowly along the road. A moment's look, a hasty inquiry, and "_Lee's men!_" burst from our lips, and tears from our eyes. There they were, the heroes of the army of Virginia, walking home, each with _his pass_ in his pocket, and nothing else. To run after them, to call them in, to feel honored at shaking those rough hands, to spread the table for them, to cry over them, and say again and again, "God bless you all; we are just as proud of you, and thank you just as much as if it had turned out differently;" this was a work which stirred our inmost souls, and has left a tender memory which will outlast life. Day after day we saw them, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in little companies, making the best of their way toward their distant homes, penniless and dependent on wayside charity for their food, plodding along, while the blue jackets pranced gayly past on the best blood of Southern stables. But I am glad to record that wherever a Federal soldier met any of them, he was prompt to offer help and food, and express a kindly and soldierly cordiality. Grant's men, they all said, had been especially generous. There was something worth studying in the air and expression of these men, a something which had a beneficial and soothing effect on the observers. They were not unduly cast down, nor had any appearance of the humiliation that was burning into our souls. They were serious, calm, and self-possessed. They said they were satisfied that all had been done that could be done, and they seemed to be sustained by the sense of duty done and well done, and the event left to God, and with His award they had no intention of quarreling. It was a fair fight, they said, but the South had been starved out; one dark-eyed young South-Carolinian said, for his part he was going home to settle down, and if any body ever said "secesh" to him again, he meant to knock 'em over. Many looked thin and feeble; and a gallant major from Fayetteville told me himself that when ordered to the last charge, he and his men, who had been living for some days on parched corn, were so weak that they reeled in their saddles. "But we would have gone again," he added, "if Lee had said so."