ous Chief. To my staff, my horses--"

He paused and turned to the heavier officer who stood with bowed head.

"You take the larger one--he'll carry you better. To my son I leave my
sword--"

He was silent a moment and then said with an effort:

"Now I want you to sing for me the song I love best:

"'Rock of ages cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee'"--

With his fast-failing breath he joined in the song, turned and murmured:

"I'm going fast now--God's will be done--"

So passed the greatest cavalry leader our country has produced--a man
whose joyous life was one long feast of good will toward his fellow men.

* * * * *

In spite of all losses, in spite of four years of frightful carnage, in
spite of the loss of the Mississippi, the States of Louisiana and
Tennessee, the Confederacy was in sight of victory.

Lee had baffled Grant's great army at every turn and now held him
securely at bay before Petersburg. The North was mortally tired of the
bloody struggle. The party which demanded peace was greater than any
political division--it included thousands of the best men in the party
of Abraham Lincoln.

The nomination of General McClellan for President on a platform
declaring the war a failure and demanding that it end was a foregone
conclusion. Jefferson Davis knew this from inside information his
friends had sent from every section of the North.

The Confederacy had only to hold its lines intact until the first Monday
in November and the Northern voters would end the war.

The one point of mortal danger to the South lay in the mental structure
of Joseph E. Johnston, the man whom Davis had been persuaded, against
his better judgment, to appoint to the command of one of the greatest
armies the Confederacy had ever put into the field.

Johnston had been sent to Dalton, Georgia, and placed in command of
sixty-eight thousand picked Confederate soldiers with which to attack
and drive Sherman out of the lower South.

Lee with sixty-four thousand had defeated Grant's one hundred and forty
thousand. Richmond was safe, and the North was besieging Washington with
an army of heart-broken mothers and fathers who demanded Grant's
removal.

No effort was spared by Davis to enable Johnston to stay Sherman's
advance and assume the offensive. The whole military strength of the
South and West was pressed forward to him. His commissary and ordnance
departments were the best in the Confe