They had answered those awful commands to charge without a murmur; and then, rolled back upon a sea of blood, they charged again over the dead bodies of their comrades. When repulsed the second time and the mad cry for a third charge from some desperate commander had rung over the field, still without a word they pulled their old ragged hats down close over their eyes as though to shut out the hail of bullets, and, through level sheets of blinding flame, walked straight into the jaws of hell. This had been easy. Now their feet seemed to falter as though they were not sure of the road. In every one of these soldier’s hearts, and over all the earth hung the shadow of the freed Negro, transformed by the exigency of war from a Chattel to be bought and sold into a possible Beast to be feared and guarded. Around this dusky figure every white man’s soul was keeping its grim vigil. North Carolina, the typical American Democracy, had loved peace and sought in vain to stand between the mad passions of the Cavalier of the South and the Puritan fanatic of the North. She entered the war at last with a sorrowful heart but a soul clear in the sense of tragic duty. She sent more boys to the front than any other state of the Confederacy--and left more dead on the field. She made the last charge and fired the last volley for Lee’s army at Appomattox. These were the ragged country boys who were slowly tramping homeward. The group whose fortunes we are to follow were marching toward the little village of Hambright that nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge under the shadows of King’s Mountain. They were the sons of the men who had first declared their independence of Great Britain in America and had made their country a hornet’s nest for Lord Cornwallis in the darkest days of the cause of Liberty. What tongue can tell the tragic story of their humble home coming? In rich Northern cities could be heard the boom of guns, the scream of steam whistles, the shouts of surging hosts greeting returning regiments crowned with victory. From every flag-staff fluttered proudly the flag that our fathers had lifted in the sky--the flag that had never met defeat. It is little wonder that in this hour of triumph the world should forget the defeated soldiers who without a dollar in their pockets were tramping to their ruined homes. Yet Nature did not seem to know of sorrow or death. Birds were singing their love songs from the hedgerows, the fields were clothed in gorgeous robes of wild flowers beneath which forget-me-nots spread their contrasting hues of blue, while life was busy in bud and starting leaf reclothing the blood-stained earth in radiant beauty.