“Yes,” said the other, “take off those greasy butternut clothes. I would, if I were you.”
“Never you mind the grease, Billy Yank,” drawled out the Confederate, “I got that out’n them beeves o’ yourn.”
Pop! went the Federal’s gun, and the Confederate was not slow to pop back at him.
General Lee’s life was now full of care; as soon as one attack on his lines was over, another was begun. He lived in a tent and would go down to the trenches himself to see how his men were getting on.
An old soldier relates that one day he came into the trenches when the firing was quite rapid. The men did not dare to cheer, lest they might bring a hotter fire from the foe, but they crowded around him and begged him to go back. But he calmly asked after their health and spoke words of cheer. Then he walked to a big gun and asked the lieutenant to fire, so that he might see its range and work. The officer said, with tears in his eyes, “General, don’t order me to fire this gun while you are here. They will open fire over there with all those big guns and you will surely get hurt. Go back out of range and I’ll fire all day.” General Lee was greatly touched by this, and went back, while the men quickly fired off the huge gun.
Lee needed not only men, but food for those he had. Many men died from cold and want.
The winter of 1864 and ’65 was a sad one for Lee and the South. There were no more men in the South to take the place of those who had been killed.
The corn and wheat of the South had been burnt and the cattle killed by the Northern armies. The people sat down to empty tables and had no more food to send their men.
Mrs. Lee, in her sick chair in Richmond, “with large heart and small means” knit socks, which she would send at once to the bare-footed men.
On January 10, 1865, General Lee writes to Mrs. Lee: