uestion. They were all dead.

The blue and grey men were talking to one another now.

"Well, Johnnie," a Yankee called through the shadows, "I can't admit
that you're inspired of God, but after to-day I must say that you are
possessed of the devil."

"Same to you, Yank! Your papers say we're all demoralized anyhow--so
to-morrow you oughtn't have no trouble finishin' us!"

"Ah, shut up now, Johnnie, and go to sleep!"

"All right, good-night, Yank, hope ye'll rest well. We'll give ye hell
at daylight!"

For five days Grant swung his blue lines in circles of blood trying in
vain to break Lee's ranks and gave it up. He had lost at Spottsylvania
eighteen thousand more men. The stolid, silent man of iron nerves was
terribly moved by the frightful losses his gallant army had sustained.
He watched with anguish the endless lines of wagons bearing his stricken
men from the field. Lee's forces had been handled with such consummate
and terrible skill, his crushing numbers had made little impression.

Grant was facing a new force in the world. The ordinary methods of war
which he had used with success in the West went here for nothing. The
devotion of Lee's men was a mania. Small as his army was the bulldog
fighter saw with amazement that it was practically unconquerable in a
square, hand-to-hand struggle.

Once more he was forced to maneuver for advantage in position. He
ordered a new flank movement by the North Anna River.

He had opened his fight with Lee on the 5th, and in two weeks he had
lost thirty-six thousand men, without gaining an inch in the execution
of his original plan of thrusting himself between the Confederate leader
and his Capital. Lee's army was apparently as terrible a fighting
machine as on the day they had met.

A truce now followed to bury the dead and care for the wounded. So sure
had Grant been of crushing his opponent he had refused to agree to this
during the struggle.

They found them piled six layers deep in the trenches, blue and grey,
blue and grey. Black wings were spread over the top with red beaks
tearing at eyes and lips while deep down below, yet groaned and moved
the living wounded.

God of Love and Pity, draw the veil over the scene! No pen can tell its
story--no heart endure to hear it.

The stop was brief. Already the cavalry were skirmishing for the next
position.

Again the keen eye of Lee had divined his enemy's purpose. By a shorter
road his men had reached the North An