Note has been made of the improvement of Federal cavalry; and of their raids, that struck terror and dismay among the people. During the winter of '63-'64, Averill penetrated the heart of Virginia, scattering destruction in his path; and, though he retired before cavalry sent to pursue him—he even shot his horses as they gave out, in the forced flight—his expedition had accomplished its object. It had proved that no point of harassed territory was safe from Federal devastation; that the overtaxed and waning strength of the South was insufficient to protect them now!
Gradually—very gradually—this blight of doubt and dissatisfaction began to affect the army; and—while it was no longer possible to fill their places by new levies—some of the men already at the front began to skulk, and even to desert.
Though still uncondoned, the crime of these was roughly urged upon them; for imagination brought to the ears of all, the shriek of the distant wife, insulted by the light of her burning roof and turned starving and half-clothed, into the snowy midnight! And all the more honor was it to the steadfast that they held out—dogged but willing—to the bitter end; fighting as man had not fought before—not only against their enemy—not only against their own natural impulses—but against hope, as well!
For the mass of that grand, tattered and worn army never faltered; and only their enduring patriotism—backed as it was by selfless energy of their home people—availed to make up for the lost opportunities of the Government!
In Congress was vacillation, discord, vacuity; while the people were goaded to the absurd charge, that some of its members were traitors! But the great diplomat has graven the truth, that an error may be worse than a crime; and the errors of the Confederate Congress—from alpha to omega—were born of weakness and feeble grasp on the prompt occasions of a great strife, like this which so submerged their littleness.
It is in some sort at the door of Congress that the head of the government, harassed by overwork, distracted by diverse trifles—each one too vital to entrust to feeble subordinates; buffeted by the gathering surge without and dragged down by the angry undertow within, lost his influence, and with it his power to save!
The beginning of the end had come upon the South. Her stoutest and bravest hearts still,
"Like muffled drums, were beating
Funeral marches to the grave!"