lost
all faith in Mr. Davis and his methods; and they sullenly refused to
accept the happy auguries of victory he drew from crushing defeat. Even
the army itself--while still doggedly determined to strike its hardest
to the bitter end--began to feel that it was fighting against hope.

And in that ten days' truce there was little chance for those worn and
wasted battalions to recuperate. There were no fresh men to send to
their aid; few, indeed, were the supplies that could be forwarded them.
But they looked into the darkness ahead steadily and calmly; they might
not see their path in it, but they were ready to march without the
path. And even as they watched and waited, so at Petersburg and
Richmond a small but sleepless David watched the grim Goliath,
stretched in its huge bulk before their gates. Ceaselessly the trains
flashed back and forth over the iron link between those two cities--now
Siamese-twinned with a vital bond of endurance and endeavor.
Petersburg, sitting defiant in her circle of fire, worked grimly,
ceaselessly--with what hope she might! and Richmond worked for her,
feeling that every drop of blood she lost was from her own veins as
well.

And so for many weary months the deadly strain went on; and the twin
cities--stretched upon the rack--bore the torture as their past
training had taught the world they must--nobly and well!

CHAPTER XXXVII.

DIES IRAE--DIES ILLA.

It is nowise within the scope of these sketches to detail that
memorable siege of Petersburg, lasting nearly one year. It were
needless to relate here, how--for more than ten months--that long
southern line of defense, constantly threatened and almost as
constantly assailed, was held. Men know now that it was not by
strength, but by sleepless watch and dogged endurance, that less than
30,000 worn men--so dotted along works extending near forty miles, that
at points there was one soldier to every rod of earthwork--held their
own, even against the earlier onsets. Men now realize why the Federal
general--failing in every separate effort to buy a key-position, even
at the cost of six lives for one--was forced to sit down sullenly and
wait the slow, but sure, process of attrition.

These matters are now stamped upon the minds of readers, on both sides
of the Potomac. In the North they had voluminous reports of every
detail; and the cessation of interest elsewhere gave full leisure to
study them. In the South, 30,000 earnest histo