"Yes. I think we must put the best face we can on the affair by attending. In these war-times everything is topsyturvy. Ah, me! What a pity we couldn't have had the child's bringing-up to ourselves!" "Yes, we should have made a very different woman of her. Anyhow, with this marriage all our responsibility for her will be at an end. And after all, perhaps it is as well to have it so, for if she had remained single there is no knowing at what moment she would have done something else as scandalous as her going North to nurse Mr. Pegram was." And so they cackled for half the night. XXXIV _THE END AND AFTER_ A few weeks later came the news that a campaign was on and battle impending. Burnside had replaced McClellan in command of the Federal armies in Virginia. He had at once begun a campaign against Richmond, moving by way of Fredericksburg. There Lee met him, posting the Southern veterans on the circling hills behind the town and awaiting his adversary's assault. Baillie Pegram had resumed command of his battery now, but no longer with the light guns that he had used while galloping with Stuart. A captured Federal battery of six twelve-pounder Napoleons had been assigned to him, and with these he took position on the crest of Marye's Heights, where there was presently to occur one of the most heroic battles of all the war. It was nearly mid-December when Burnside crossed the river and moved to assault Lee. His army, though greater than Lee's, was not quite so great in numbers as it had been when McClellan had commanded it near Richmond's gates; but it was greatly more formidable in all other respects. The men who composed it were war-seasoned veterans now, and its officers had fully learned their trade of command. Moreover the army had successfully held its own against Lee at Sharpsburg, and the confidence inspired by that event was an important element of strength. But in Burnside the Federal administration had again failed to find a leader capable of so employing the North's stupendous resources of men, money, and material as to crush the splendid resistance of the Army of Northern Virginia. So Burnside failed, as McDowell, and McClellan, and Pope had failed before, and as Hooker, who succeeded him in command, failed even more conspicuously, when, in the following spring, he made the campaign of Chancellorsville. After Chancellorsville Lee crossed the Potomac again. Then came Gettysburg, which proved to be the turning-point in the war, so far as the armies of Virginia were concerned.