en achieved.

"Under ordinary circumstances," he wrote, "the Federal army should have
been destroyed. Its escape was due to causes already stated. Prominent
among them was the want of correct and timely information. The first,
attributable chiefly to the character of the country, enabled General
McClellan skillfully to conceal his retreat and to add much to the
obstructions with which nature had beset the way of our pursuing column.
But regret that more was not accomplished gives way to gratitude to the
Sovereign Ruler of the Universe for the results achieved."

Jackson, the grim soldier, whose habit was to pray all night before
battle, wrote with the fervor of the religious enthusiast.

"Undying gratitude is due to God for this great victory--by which
despondency increases in the North, hope brightens in the South and the
Capital of Virginia and the Confederacy is saved."

A wave of exultation swept the South--while Death stalked through the
streets of Richmond.

Instead of the tramp of victorious hosts, their bayonets glittering in
the sunlight, which Socola had confidently expected, he watched from the
windows of the Department of State the interminable lines of ambulances
bearing the wounded from the fields of McClellan's seven-days' battle.

The darkened room on Church Hill was opened. Miss Van Lew had watched
the glass rattle under the thunder of McClellan's guns, and then with
sinking heart heard their roar fade in the distance until only the
rumble of the ambulances through the streets told that he had been
there. She burned the flag. It was too dangerous a piece of bunting to
risk in her house now. It would be many weary months before she would
need another.

Through every hour of the day and night since Lee sprang on McClellan,
those never-ending lines of ambulances had wound their way through the
streets. Every store and every home and every public building had been
converted into a hospital. The counters of trade were moved aside and
through the plate glass along the crowded streets could be seen the long
rows of pallets on which the mangled bodies of the wounded lay. Every
home set aside at least one room for the wounded boys of the South.

The heart-rending cries of the men from the wagons as they jolted over
the cobble stones rose day and night--a sad, weird requiem of agony,
half-groan, half-chant, to which the ear of pity could never grow
indifferent.

Death was the one figure now with which e