“You believe Wilmington is going to fall, then?”
“As surely as Savannah.”
“Savannah! You think that? We are more hopeful at Petersburg.”
“Hopeful or not, colonel, I am certain of what I say. Remember my prediction when it is fulfilled. The Yankees are a theatrical people. They take Vicksburg, and win Gettysburg, on their ‘great national anniversary;’ and now they are going to present themselves with a handsome ‘Christmas gift’—that is the city of Savannah.”
He spoke with evident difficulty, and his laboring voice, like his haggard cheeks, showed that he had been ill since I last saw him.
“Savannah captured, or surrendered!” I said, with knit brows. “What will be the result of that?”
“Ruin,” was the curt response.
“Not the loss of a mere town?”
“No; the place itself is nothing. For Sherman to take it will not benefit him much; but it will prove to the country, and the President, that he is irresistible. Then they will hack; and you will see the beginning of the end.”
“That is a gloomy view enough.”