“You'll be obliged to do some powerful hard fighting, I reckon, for our side won't give up so long's there's anything to eat in the Confederacy. But if we're to be overcome, sure enough, I hope it will be soon—before my sons are killed. Our boys'll die game, sure's you're born.”
“I hope your sons will be spared.”
“I trust they will. They believe they are fighting for a just cause. They are Virginians, and they have great faith in Gen. Lee. They will follow him to the end. But it's a cruel wah. Somebody must be wrong; both sides cannot be right. I don't understand it thoroughly, but I feel that somebody has made a terrible mistake.”
“Ma, the Yankees hasn't got horns, has they, ma?” exclaimed one of the children, a girl about five years old, and who was gnawing at a hard-tack one of the troopers had given her.
“No, my darling.”
And the Confederate soldier's widow joined in the laugh that followed this juvenile outbreak. Good-bys were said, and the foraging party hastened to rejoin the column.
CHAPTER X.
Butler s Advance on the South Side—How the Massachusetts Major-General Escaped Hanging—Returning to Grant's Army—The Fight at Hawes's Shop—A Dying Confederate's Last Request—Holding Cold Harbor at all Hazards—Filling the Canteens—Running into the Enemy.