In driving Sheridan's cavalry back from Richmond General Stuart fell at Yellow Tavern mortally wounded--the bravest of the brave--a full Major General who had won immortal fame at thirty-one years of age. His beautiful wife, the daughter of a Union General, Philip St. George Cooke, could not reach his bedside before he breathed his last. The President reverently entered the death chamber and stood for fifteen minutes holding the hand of his brilliant young commander. They told him that he could not live to see his wife. "I should have liked to have seen her," he said gently, "but God's will be done." The doctor felt his fast fading pulse. "Doctor, I suppose I'm going fast now," Stuart said. "It will soon be over. I hope I have fulfilled my duty to my country and my God--" "Your end is near, General Stuart," the doctor responded softly. "All right," was the even answer. "I'll end my little affairs down here. To Mrs. Robert E. Lee I give my gold spurs, in eternal memory of the love I bear my glorious Chief. To my staff, my horses--" He paused and turned to the heavier officer who stood with bowed head. "You take the larger one--he'll carry you better. To my son I leave my sword--" He was silent a moment and then said with an effort: "Now I want you to sing for me the song I love best: "'Rock of ages cleft for me Let me hide myself in thee'"-- With his fast-failing breath he joined in the song, turned and murmured: "I'm going fast now--God's will be done--" So passed the greatest cavalry leader our country has produced--a man whose joyous life was one long feast of good will toward his fellow men. * * * * * In spite of all losses, in spite of four years of frightful carnage, in spite of the loss of the Mississippi, the States of Louisiana and Tennessee, the Confederacy was in sight of victory. Lee had baffled Grant's great army at every turn and now held him securely at bay before Petersburg. The North was mortally tired of the bloody struggle. The party which demanded peace was greater than any political division--it included thousands of the best men in the party of Abraham Lincoln. The nomination of General McClellan for President on a platform declaring the war a failure and demanding that it end was a foregone conclusion. Jefferson Davis knew this from inside information his friends had sent from every section of the North. The Confederacy had only to hold its lines intact until the first Monday in November and the Northern voters would end the war. The one point of mortal danger to the South lay in the mental structure of Joseph E. Johnston, the man whom Davis had been persuaded, against his better judgment, to appoint to the command of one of the greatest armies the Confederacy had ever put into the field. Johnston had been sent to Dalton, Georgia, and placed in command of sixty-eight thousand picked Confederate soldiers with which to attack and drive Sherman out of the lower South.