The capture of New Orleans seals the Mississippi. The Confederacy is cut in twain. It is positive now, the only help from the golden West will be the arrival of parties of self-devoted men like himself. They come in squads, bolting through Mexico or slipping through Arizona. Some reach Panama and Havana, gaining the South by blockade runners. He opens mail communication with Judge Hardin, via Havana. He succeeds in exchanging views with the venerable head of his house at New Orleans. It is all gloomy now. Old and despondent, the New Orleans patriarch has sent his youthful son away to Paris. Armand is too young to bear arms. He can only come home and do a soldier's duty later. By family influence, Maxime Valois finds himself soon a major in a Louisiana regiment. He wears his gray uniform at the head of men already veterans. Shiloh's disputed laurels are theirs. They are tigers who have tasted blood. In the rapidly changing scenes of service, trusting to chance for news of his family, Maxime Valois' whole nature is centred upon the grave duties of his station. Southern victories are hailed from the East. The victorious arms of the Confederacy roll back McClellan's great force. Bruised, bleeding, and shattered from the hard-fought fields of the Peninsula, the Unionists recoil. The stars of the Southern Cross are high in hope's bright field. Though Richmond is saved for the time, it is at a fearful cost. Malvern Hill shakes to its base under the flaming cannon, ploughing the ranks of the dauntless Confederates, as the Army of the Potomac hurls back the confident legions of Lee, Johnston, and Jackson. The Army of the Potomac is decimated. The bloody attrition of the field begins to wear off these splendid lines which the South can never replace. Losses like those of Pryor's Brigade, nine hundred out of fifteen hundred in a single campaign, would appall any but the grim Virginian soldiers. They are veterans now. They learn the art of war in fields like Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Even Pryor, as chivalric in action as truculent in debate, now admits that the Yankees will fight. Fredericksburg's butchery is a victory of note. All the year the noise of battle rolls, while the Eastern war is undecided, for the second Manassas and awful Antietam balance each other. Maxime Valois feels the issue is lost. When the shock of battle has been tried at Corinth, where lion-like Rosecrans conquers, when the glow of the onset fades away, his heart sinks. He knows that the iron-jointed men of the West are the peers of any race in the field. Ay! In the West it is fighting from the first. Donelson, Shiloh, and Corinth lead up to the awful death shambles of Stone River, Vicksburg, and Chickamauga. These are scenes to shake the nerve of the very bravest.