cattering
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!"

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES.

From the earliest moment General Grant assumed command in the West, the
old idea of bisecting the Confederacy seems to have monopolized