t is General Lee?"

"Yes, general."

"Good!"

Lee's staff halted; Lee himself came on, checked the iron-grey,
dismounted, and walked toward the honey locust. Jackson swung himself
stiffly out of the saddle and stepped forward. The two met. Lee
stretched out his hand, said something in his gracious voice. The
piteous row of dead men, with their open eyes, caught his glance. He
drew his brows together, pressed his lips hard, parted them in a sigh
and went on with his speech. The two men, so different in aspect, talked
not long together. The staff could not hear what was said, but Lee spoke
the most and very earnestly. Jackson nodded, said, "Good!" several
times, and once, "It is in God's hands, General Lee!"

The courier holding Traveller brought him up. Lee mounted, tarried, a
great and gallant figure, a moment longer, then rode toward Magruder at
the peach orchard. His staff followed, saluting Stonewall Jackson as
they passed. He, too, remounted in his stiff and awkward fashion, and
turned Little Sorrel's head down the Williamsburg road. Behind him now,
in the clear bright morning, could be heard the tramp of his brigades.
Stafford pushed his horse level with the sorrel. "Your pardon, general,
but may I ask if there's any order for General Ewell--"

"There is none, sir."

"Then shall I return?"

"No, you will wait, sir. From the cross-roads I may send directions."

They rode on by wood and field. Overhead was a clear, high, azure sky;
no clouds, but many black sailing specks. Around, on the sandy road, and
in the shaggy, bordering growth, were witnesses enough to the Federal
retreat--a confused medley of abandoned objects. Broken and half-burned
wagons appeared, like wreckage from a storm. There did not lack dead or
dying horses, nor, here and there, dead or wounded men. In the thicker
woods or wandering through the ruined fields appeared, forlornly,
stragglers from the Federal column. D. H. Hill, leading the grey
advance, swept up hundreds of these. From every direction spirals of
smoke rose into the crystal air,--barns and farmhouses, mills, fences,
hayricks, and monster heaps of Federal stores set on fire in that
memorable "change of base." For all the sunshine of the June morning,
the rain-washed air, the singing birds in the jewelled green of the
forest, there was something in the time and place inexpressibly sinister
and sad.

Or so thought Maury Stafford, riding silently with the aide and the
courier.