The forces of the North were now where McClellan had wished to place them, using the great waterway of the Chesapeake and the James, something more than two years ago. They were in a position to mate. The Federal Government had worked the problem by the Rule of False.
At dawn of the thirteenth, Lee left the lines of Cold Harbour and, passing the Chickahominy, bivouacked that night between White Oak Swamp and Malvern Hill. The next day and the next the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the James by pontoon at Drewry’s Bluff, and pressed south to the Appomattox and the old town of Petersburg. Here was Beauregard, and here, on the fifteenth, Butler, by Grant’s orders, had launched an attack from Bermuda Hundred, heroically repulsed by the small grey force at Petersburg. Now on the sixteenth and the seventeenth came Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, entering the lines of Petersburg while drum and fife played “Dixie.” Of the Army of the Potomac the Second and Ninth Corps were up and in position, the Fifth upon the road. Face to face again were Hector and Achilles, Army of Northern Virginia, Army of the Potomac, but the first again held the inner line. South of Richmond as north of Richmond, Grant found Lee between him and Richmond.
There was a garden behind the kinsman’s house in Richmond. Cleave and Judith, coming from the house, found it empty this afternoon save for its roses and its birds. A high wall, ivy-covered, cloistered it from the street. Beneath the tulip tree was a bench and they sat themselves down here. He leaned his head back against the bark and closed his eyes. It was several days before the lifting of the warring pieces across the river. With the Second Corps he was on his way to the Valley. “I did not know,” he said, “that I was so tired. I have not slept for two nights.”
“Sleep now. I will sit here, just as quietly—”
He smiled. “It is very likely that I would do that, is it not?” Bending his head, he took her hands and pressed his forehead upon them. “Judith—Judith—Judith—”
The birds sang, the roses bloomed. From the south came a dull booming, the cannon of Beauregard and of Butler, distant, continuous, like surf on breakers. The two paid it no especial attention. Life had been set now for a long while to such an accompaniment. There was something at least as old as strife, and that was love; as old and as strong and as perpetually renewed.
The shadows lengthened on the grass. There came a sound of bugles blowing. The lovers turned and clung and kissed, then in the violet light their hands fell apart. Cleave rose. “They are singing, ‘Come away!’” he said.
There were stars in a wreath now upon the collar of his coat. She touched them, smiling through tears. “General Cleave.... It comes late but it comes well.... Oh, my general, my general!”
“Little enough of the Stonewall Brigade remains,” he said. “For the most part what was not killed and was not captured at Spottsylvania has been gathered into Terry’s brigade, and goes, too, to the Valley. But the Sixty-fifth goes with me and the Golden Brigade. The Golden Brigade cares for me because I am Warwick Cary’s kinsman.”
“Not alone for that,” she said, “but for that also ... Oh, my father—my father!”