“Yes, by April; and then—you know what!”
“But Lee will protect it.”
Mr. X——- shrugged his shoulders.
“Shall I tell you a secret?”
I listened.
“Lee’s force is less than 50,000—next spring it will not number 40,000. Grant’s will be at least four times that.”
“Why can not our army be re-enforced?”
Mr. X——- helped himself to a fresh cigar.
“The people are tired, and the conscript officers are playing a farce,” he said. “The commissary department gives the army a quarter of a pound of rancid meat. That even often fails, for the quartermaster’s department does not supply it. The result is—no conscripts, and a thousand desertions. The soldiers are starving; their wives and children are writing them letters that drive them mad—the end is not far off; and when Grant reaches the Southside road we are gone.”
Mr. X——- smoked his cigar with extreme calmness as he spoke.