a man."

[Illustration: Music "Um, hmm, hmm, hmm, Mm, hmm, hmm, hmm--"]

"_Leave the room!_"

But these were closed incidents when those befell which two or three
final pages linger to recount. The siege of Spanish Fort was the war's
last great battle. From March twenty-sixth to April the eighth it was
deadly, implacable; the defense hot, defiant, audacious. On the night of
the eighth the fort's few hundred cannoneers spiked their heavy guns
and, taking their light ones along, left it. They had fought fully
aware that Richmond was already lost, and on the next day, a Sabbath,
as Kincaid's Battery trundled through the town while forty thousand
women and children--with the Callenders and little Steve--wept, its boys
knew their own going meant Mobile had fallen, though they knew not that
in that very hour the obscure name of Appomattox was being made forever
great in history.

"I reached Meridian," writes their general, "refitted the ...field
batteries and made ready to march across (country) and join General
Joseph E. Johnston in Carolina. The tidings of Lee's surrender soon
came.... But ...the little army of Mobile remained steadfastly together,
and in perfect order and discipline awaited the final issue of events."

It was while they so waited that Kincaid's Battery learned of the
destruction, by fire, of Callender House, but took comfort in agreeing
that now, at last, come or fail what might, the three sweetest women
that ever lived would live up-town.

One lovely May morning a Federal despatch-boat--yes, the one we
know--sped down Mobile Bay with many gray-uniformed men aboard, mostly
of the ranks and unaccoutred, but some of them officers still belted for
their unsurrendered swords. Many lads showed the red artillery trim and
wore jauntily on their battered caps K.B. separated by crossed cannon.
"Roaring Betsy" had howled her last forever. Her sergeant, Valcour, was
there, with his small fond bride, both equally unruffled by any
misgiving that they would not pull through this still inviting world
happily.

Mandeville was present, his gilt braid a trifle more gilt than any one
else's. Constance and little Steve--who later became president of the
Cotton Exchange--were with him. Also Miranda. Out forward yonder on the
upper deck, beside tall Hilary Kincaid, stood Anna. Greenleaf eyed them
from the pilot-house, where he had retired to withhold the awkward
reminder inseparable from his blue livery. In Hilary's fi