t much to gather. Throughout all that
long autumn and winter the Army of Northern Virginia had disintegrated
steadily. Nobody came to take the place of the slain, the wounded and
the sick. All the regiments were skeletons. Many of them could not
muster a hundred men apiece.

But Harry saw no sign of discouragement on the face of the chief whom he
respected and admired so much. Lee was thinner and his hair was whiter,
but his figure was as erect and vigorous as ever, and his face retained
its ruddy color. Yet he knew the odds against him. Grant outside his
works mustered a hundred thousand trained fighters, not raw levies,
and the seasoned Army of the Potomac, that had persisted alike through
victory and defeat, and proof now against any adversity, saw its prize
almost in its hand. And the worn veterans whom the Southern leader could
marshal against Grant were not one third his numbers.

The orderly who usually brought Lee's horse was missing on another errand,
and Harry himself was proud to bring Traveler. The general was absorbed
in deep thought, and he did not notice until he was in the saddle who
held the bridle.

"Ah, it is you, Lieutenant Kenton!" he said. "You are always where you
are needed. You have been a good soldier."

Harry flushed deeply with pleasure at such a compliment from such a
source.

"I've tried to do my best, sir," he replied modestly.

"No one can do any more. You and Mr. Dalton keep close to me. We must
go and deal with those people, once more."

His calm, steady tones brought Harry's courage back. To the young
hero-worshiper Lee himself was at least fifty thousand men, and even with
his scanty numbers he would pluck victory from the very heart of defeat.

There could no longer be any possible doubt that Grant was about to
attack, and Lee made his dispositions rapidly. While he led the bulk of
his army in person to battle, Longstreet was left to face the army north
of the James, while Gordon at the head of Ewell's old corps stood in
front of Petersburg. Then Lee turned away to the right with less than
twenty thousand men to meet Grant, and fortified himself along the White
Oak Road. Here he waited for the Union general, who had not yet brought
up his masses, but Harry and Dalton felt quite sure that despite the
disparity of numbers Lee was the one who would attack. It had been so
all through the war, and they knew that in the offensive lay the best
defensive. The even