Still, they held on with a grim determination that no circumstance could conquer.
They perfectly knew that the end was approaching. They perfectly knew that that end could mean nothing to them but disaster. Nevertheless, they stood to their guns and stubbornly resisted every force hurled against them. With heroic cheerfulness, they fought on, never asking themselves to what purpose. Throughout the winter they suffered starvation and cold; for food was scarce, and of clothing there was none.
Surely the spectacle was one in contemplation of which the angels might have paused in admiration. Surely the heroism of those devoted men was an exhibition of all that is best in the American character, a display of courage which should be for ever cherished in the memory of all American men.
When the spring came, and the roads hardened, Grant delivered the final blow. Sherman had cut the Confederacy in two by his march to the sea, and was now, in overwhelming force, pushing his way northward again, with intent to unite his army with Grant’s for Lee’s destruction.
Then Grant concentrated a great army on his left and struck a crushing blow. Lee withdrew from Richmond and Petersburg, and made a desperate endeavour to retreat to some new line of defence farther south.
The effort was foredoomed to failure. It ended in the surrender at Appomattox of a little fragment of that heroic Army of Northern Virginia which had for so long stood its ground against overwhelming odds, and so manfully endured hunger and cold and every other form of suffering that may befall the soldier.
It was during that last retreat that Kilgariff and Evelyn met for the first time since they had plighted troth, and for the last time as mere man and woman, not husband and wife.
Kilgariff, a brigadier-general now, had been ordered to take command of the guns defending the rear. By night and by day he was always in action. But when the line of march passed near to Wyanoke, he sent a messenger to Evelyn, bearing a note scrawled upon a scrap of paper which he held against his saddle-tree, in lieu of a desk. In the note he wrote simply:—
Come to me, wherever I am to be found. I want you to be my wife before I die. You have courage. Come to me—we’ll be married in battle, and the guns shall play the wedding march.
Evelyn responded to the summons, and these two were made one upon the battlefield, with bullets flying about their heads and rifle shells applauding.