"Right, Hector! He's as surely there as we are here. The voice of those cannon is the voice of John Carrington. Well, if we're to be crushed I prefer for good old John to do it."
"But we're not crushed, Leonidas. We'll go out of Petersburg tonight, beating off every attack of the enemy, and then if we can't hold Richmond we'll march into North Carolina, gather together all the remaining forces of the Confederacy, and, directed by the incomparable genius of our great commander, we'll yet win the victory."
"Right, Hector! Right! Pardon me my moment of depression, but it was only a moment, remember, and it will not occur again. The loss of a capital—even if it should come to that—does not necessarily mean the loss of a cause. Among the hills and mountains of North Carolina we can hold out forever."
Harry was cheered by them, but he did not fully share their hopes and beliefs.
"Aren't they two of the greatest men you've ever known?" whispered St. Clair to him.
"If honesty and grandeur of soul make greatness they surely are," replied Harry feelingly.
He returned now to his general's side, and watched the great bombardment. Scores of guns in a vast half circle were raining shells upon the slender Confederate lines. The blaze was continuous on a long front, and huge clouds of smoke gathered above. Harry believed that the entire Union army would move forward and attack their works, but the charge did not come. Evidently Grant remembered Cold Harbor, and, feeling that his enemy was in his grasp, he refrained from useless sacrifices.
Another terrible night, lighted up by the flash of cannon and thundering with the crash of the batteries came, and Lee, collecting his army of less than twenty thousand men, moved out of Petersburg. It tore Harry's heart to leave the city, where they had held Grant at bay so long, but he knew the necessity. They could not live another day under that concentrated and awful fire. They might stay and surrender or retreat and fight again, and valiant souls would surely choose the latter.
The march began just after twilight turned to night, and the darkness and clouds of skirmishers hid it from the enemy. They crossed the Appomattox, and then advanced on the Hickory road on the north side of the river. General Lee stood on foot, but with the bridle of Traveler in his hand and his staff about him, at the entrance to the road, and watched the troops as they marched past.
His composure and steadiness seemed to Harry as great as ever, and his voice never broke, as he spoke now and then to the marching men. Nor was the spirit of the men crushed. Again and again they cheered as they saw the strong figure of the gray commander who had led them so often to victory. Nor were they shaken by the booming of the cannon behind them, nor by the tremendous crashes that marked the explosions of the magazines in Petersburg.