own deep sorrow, have wept over many graves.
But, like all the women of the South, they have taken up the burden of
life bravely, and, God helping them, will not falter or fail until He
shall release them.

By and by, the men and boys of the family, from distant Appomattox,
from the Army of Tennessee, came straggling home. All had walked
interminable miles,--all wore equally ragged, dirty, foot-sore, weary,
dejected, despairing. They had done their best and had failed. Their
labor was ended.

All over the land lay the ruins of once happy homes. As men gazed upon
them, and thought of the past and _the future_, the apathy of despair
crept over them; life seemed a burden too heavy to be borne; they
longed to lay it down forever. For a time, men who had faced death
again and again while struggling for _freedom_, could not find courage
to look upon the desolation of the land, or to face the dread future.
Closing their weary eyes, they slept until the clanking of chains
awakened them.

Despotic power wrung the already bleeding, tortured heart of the
South, until crying aloud, she held out to her sons her fettered
hands. And then, fully aroused, hearing the piteous cries, the rattle
of chains, seeing the beloved face, full of woe, conscious of every
bitter, burning tear (which as it fell, seemed to sear their own
hearts), struggling to reach, to succor her, they found _themselves_
bound and powerless to save.

Alas, dear friends, that the pathway which opened so brightly, which
seemed to lead to heights of superlative glory, should have ended
beside the grave of hope. Oh, was it not hard to believe that
"whatever is is right?" To kneel submissively in this valley of
humiliation, and lift our streaming eyes to the heavens, that seemed
of brass, to the Father who, it then appeared, had forgotten to be
merciful. The glory which even then was apparent to the outside world,
could not penetrate the clouds which hung above us.

The land was yet red with blood that had been poured out in vain. From
once happy homes came wails of grief and despair.

Even the embers wore dead upon the hearths around which loved ones
should never more gather.

And since hope is dead, and naught can avail to change the decrees of
Fate, let me close this record of mingled glory and gloom, for hero
must be written,--

OMEGA.

CHAPTER VII.

CONFEDERATE WOMEN.

No historian can faithfully recount the story of the war and leave
untouch