"You'd like your papa to come back home from the war and stay with you always, wouldn't you, dear?"
"Yes, sir," she breathed.
"Maybe he will, soon."
"You see, General," Sweeney said, "when my Chief fell, I threw my banjo away and got a musket."
"If I only had Stuart here to-day!" Lee sighed.
"He'd cut his way through, sir, with a shout and a laugh," Sweeney boasted.
A courier handed Lee a dispatch and Sweeney edged away. The Commander read the message with a frown and crumpled the paper in his hand. The wagons at Appomattox had been cut to pieces. His army had nothing to eat. They had been hungry for two days and nights.
"It's more than flesh can bear, Taylor—and yet listen to those guns! They're still fighting this morning. Fighting like tigers. Grant's closing in with a hundred thousand men. Unless Gordon breaks through within an hour—he's got us—"
Lee gazed toward the sound of the guns on the left. His face was calm but his carriage was no longer quite erect. The agony of sleepless nights had plowed furrows in his forehead. His eyes were red. His cheeks were sunken and haggard. His face was colorless. And yet he was calmly deliberate in every movement.
An old man, flushed with excitement, staggered up to him.