But again Bragg failed to measure up to the situation, and instead of capturing or destroying his antagonist, which a prompt pursuit must have insured, he actually refused to understand that he had won a victory until its fruits were beyond his reach. Not even that costly piece of stupidity could quite shake the confidence of the President in his old friend, and it was not until Bragg had insured and received his own disastrous defeat at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, by sending Longstreet's whole corps away on a wild-goose chase against Knoxville, that his resignation was accepted; and even then he was taken to Richmond and duly installed as the military adviser of the Chief Executive. [Illustration: The Battle of the Crater] The fortunes of the Confederacy were now at a low ebb. The Western army was demoralized and so hopeless seemed the task of reorganization that one general after another refused to undertake it, until in his dilemma the President turned once more to General Johnston. That splendid soldier, forgetting past injuries, accepted the command and soon succeeded in creating an army whose very existence infused new courage throughout the Confederacy. In the meantime, Mr. Davis' resolution rose superior over the reverses that were everywhere overwhelming his government, and our admiration for the man vastly increases as we see him steering, wisely now, his foundering nation into that dark year 1864, destined to reveal to us a great man growing greater, better and more lovable under the heavy accumulation of terrible misfortune. XXV. The Chief of a Heroic People The world has never witnessed a more sublime spectacle than that presented by the Southern people at the beginning of 1864. The finances of the government had gone from bad to worse until it required a bursting purse to purchase a dinner. Or, rather it would have done so had the dinner been procurable at all, which in most cases it was not. Gaunt famine stalked through a desolate land scarred by the remains of destroyed homes and drenched in the blood of its best manhood. Scarcely a home had escaped the besom of death and destruction, and, on the lordly domains where once a prodigal and princely hospitality had been daily dispensed, children cried in vain for the bread that the broken-hearted mother could no longer give. That such terrific desolation should have failed to force submission is almost beyond understanding, but it produced exactly the opposite result.