"Oh, General Lee," I answered, "I had too much mercy to join in your buttermilk persecution!"
"Persecution!" he said; "such things keep us alive! Last night, when I reached my headquarters, I found a card on my table with a hyacinth pinned to it, and these words: 'for General Lee, with a kiss!' Now," he added, tapping his breast, "I have here my hyacinth and my card—and I mean to find my kiss!"
He was amused by the earnest eyes of my little girl, as she gazed into his face.
"They have a wonderful liking for soldiers," he said. "I knew one little girl to give up all her pretty curls willingly, that she might look like Custis! 'They might cut my hair like Custis's,' she said. Custis! whose shaven head does not improve him in any eyes but hers."
His manner was the perfection of repose and simplicity. As he talked with me I remembered that I had heard of this singular calmness. Even at Gettysburg, and at the explosion of the crater, he had evinced no agitation or dismay. I did not know then, as I do now, that nothing had ever approached the anguish of this moment, when he had come to say an encouraging and cheering word to me, after abandoning all hope of the success of the cause.
After talking awhile and sending a kind message to my husband, to greet him on his return, he rose, walked to the window, and looked over the fields—the fields through which, not many days afterward, he dug his last trenches!
I was moved to say, "You only, General, can tell me if it is worth my while to put the ploughshare into those fields."
"Plant your seeds, Madam," he replied; sadly adding, after a moment, "the doing it will be some reward."
I was answered. I thought then he had little hope. I now know he had none.
He had already, as we have seen, remonstrated against further resistance—against the useless shedding of blood. His protest had been unheeded. It remained for him now to gather his forces for endurance to the end.