"One? O Willie, it is a thousand. You had that many chances of escape where you were; you might be wounded and captured a score of times, and come home safe at last; but this!"
"I know."
"To go into every battle with the sentence of death hanging over you; to know that if you are anywhere captured, anyhow made prisoner, you are condemned to die,—O Willie, I can't bear it; I can't bear it! I shall die, or go mad, to carry such a thought all the time."
For answer he only held her close, with his face resting upon her hair, and in the stillness they could hear each other's heart beat.
"It is God's service," he said, at last.
"I know."
"It will end slavery and the war more effectually than aught else."
"I know."
"It will make these freedmen, wherever they fight, free men. It will give them and their people a sense of dignity and power that might otherwise take generations to secure."
"I know."