. And Jubal Early had, that morning, pushed out every man he
had, that could stand; and they lay hid for three mortal hours, within I
don't know how near the picket line at Fort Powhatan, only waiting for
the shot which John Streight's party were to fire at Wilson's Wharf, as
soon as somebody on our left centre advanced in force on the enemy's
line above Turkey Island stretching across to Nansemond. I am not in the
War Department, and I forget whether he was to advance _en barbette_ or
by _echelon_ of infantry. But he was to advance somehow, and he knew
how; and when he advanced, you see, that other man lower down was to
rush in, and as soon as Early heard him he was to surprise Powhatan, you
see; and then, if you have understood me, Grant and Butler and the whole
rig of them would have been cut off from their supplies, would have had
to fight a battle for which they were not prepared, with their right
made into a new left, and their old left unexpectedly advanced at an
oblique angle from their centre, and would not that have been the end of
them?

Well, that never happened. And the reason it never happened was, that
poor George Schaff, with the last fatal order for this man whose name I
forget (the same who was afterward killed the day before High Bridge),
undertook to save time by cutting across behind my house, from Franklin
to Green Streets. You know how much time he saved,--they waited all day
for that order. George told me afterwards that the last thing he
remembered was kissing his hand to Julia, who sat at her bedroom window.
He said he thought she might be the last woman he ever saw this side of
heaven. Just after that, it must have been,--his horse--that white
Messenger colt old Williams bred--went over like a log, and poor George
was pitched fifteen feet head-foremost against a stake there was in that
lot. Julia saw the whole. She rushed out with all the women, and had
just brought him in when I got home. And that was the reason that the
great promised combination of December, 1864, never came off at all.

I walked out in the lot, after McGregor turned me out of the chamber, to
see what they had done with the horse. There he lay, as dead as old
Messenger himself. His neck was broken. And do you think, I looked to
see what had tripped him. I supposed it was one of the boys' bandy
holes. It was no such thing. The poor wretch had tangled his hind legs
in one of those infernal hoop-wires that Chloe had thrown out