Grant, the commander of all the forces of the Union in the field. We passed the long line of troops, crossed the Pamunkey upon a pontoon bridge, rode a mile or two across the verdant intervale, and halted beneath the oaks, magnolias, and buttonwoods of an old Virginia mansion. The edifice was reared a century ago. It was of wood, stately and substantial. How luxurious the surrounding shade; the smooth lawn, the rolled pathways bordered by box, with moss-roses, honeysuckle, and jessamines scenting the air, and the daisies dotting the greensward! The sweep of open land, — viewing it from the wide portico; the long reach of cultivated grounds; acres of wheat rolling in the breeze, like waves of the ocean; meadow-lands, smooth and fair; distant groves and woodlands,- how magnificent! It was an old estate, inherited by successive generations, by those whose pride it had been to keep the paternal acres in the family name. But the sons had all gone. A daughter was the last heir. She gave her hand, and heart, and the old homestead, sheep, horses, a great stock of bovines, and a hundred negroes or more, - to her husband. The family name became extinct, and the homestead of seven or eight generations passed into the hands of one bearing another

name.

When McClellan was on the Peninsula, the shadow of the war-cloud swept past the place. One or two negroes ran away, but at that time they were not tolerated in camp. The campaign of 1862 left the estate unharmed. But Sheridan's cavalry, followed by the Sixth Corps, in its magnificent march from the North Anna, had suddenly and unexpectedly disturbed the security of the old plantation. There was a rattling fire from carbines, a fierce fight, men wounded and dead, broken fences, trodden fields of wheat and clover; ransacked stables, corn-bins, meat-houses, and a swift disappearing of live stock of every description.

But to go back a little. The proprietor of this estate ardently espoused Secession. His wife was as earnest as he. They hated the North. They loved the institutions and principles of the South. They sold their surplus negroes in the Richmond market. They parted husbands and wives, tore children from the arms of their mothers, and separated them forever. They lived

on unrequited labor, and grew rich through the breeding of human flesh for the market.

When the war commenced, the owner of this magnificent estate enlisted in the army and was made a Colonel of cavalry. He furnished supplies and kept open house for his comrades in arms; but he fell in a cavalry engagement on the Rappahannock, in October, 1863, leaving a wife and three young children. The advance of the army, its sudden appearance on the Pamunkey, left Mrs. no time to remove her personal estate, or to send her negroes to Richmond for safe keeping. Fitz-Hugh Lee disputed Sheridan's advance. The fighting began on this estate. Charges by squadrons and regiments were made through the corn-fields. Horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, were seized by the cavalrymen. The garden, filled with young vegetables, was spoiled. In an hour there was complete desolation. The hundred negroes-cook, steward, chambermaid, house and field hands, old and young- all left their work and followed the army. Mrs. was left to do her own work. The parlors of the stately mansion were taken by the surgeons for a hospital. The change which Mrs. experienced was from affluence to abject poverty, from power to sudden helplessness. Passing by one of the negro cabins on the estate, I saw a middle-aged colored woman packing a bundle.

"Are you going to move?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; I am going to follow the army." "What for? Where will you go?"

"I want to go to Washington, to find my husband. He ran away awhile ago, and is at work in Washington."

"Do you think it right, auntie, to leave your mistress, who has taken care of you so long?"

She had been busy with her bundle, but stopped now and stood erect before me, her hands on her hips. Her black eyes flashed.

"Taken care of me! What did she ever do for me? Haven't I been her cook for more than thirty years? Have n't I cooked every meal she ever ate in that house? What has she done for me in return? She has sold my children down South, one after another. She has whipped me when I cried for them. She has treated me like a hog, sir! Yes, sir, like a hog!"

She resumed her work of preparation for leaving. That night she and her remaining children joined the thousands of colored people who had already taken sudden leave of their

masters.

Returning to the mansion to see the wounded, I met Mrs. in the hall. She was tall, robust, dignified. She evidently did not fully realize the great change which had taken place in her affairs. The change was not complete at that moment. The colored steward was there, hat in hand; obsequious, bowing politely, and obeying all commands. A half-hour before I had seen him in the cook's cabin, making arrangements for leaving the premises, and a half-hour later he was on his way toward freedom.

"I wish I had gone to Richmond," said the lady. "This is terrible, terrible! They have taken all my provisions, all my horses and cattle. My servants are going. What shall I do?" She sank upon the sofa, and for a moment gave way to her feelings.

"You are better off here than you would be there, with the city full of wounded, and scant supplies in the market,” I remarked.

"You are right, sir. What could I do with my three little children there? Yet how I am to live here I don't know. When will this terrible war come to an end?"

But enough of this scene. I have introduced it because it is real, and because it is but one of many. There are hundreds of Southern homes where the change has been equally great. Secession is not what they who started it thought it would be. The penalties for crime always come, sooner or later. God's scales are correctly balanced. He makes all things even. For every tear wrung from the slave by injustice, for every broken heart, for the weeping and wailing of mothers for their babes sold to the far-off South, for every wrong there is retribution. "Though the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all."

CHAPTER XX.

TO PETERSBURG.

GENERAL GRANT had tried to break Lee's lines at Cold Harbor, and had been repulsed with great loss. The Richmond newspapers were jubilant. "He is floundering in the swamps of Chickahominy. He has reached the graveyard of Yankee armies," said they.

The newspapers opposed to the war and in sympathy with the Rebellion, in the North, made Cold Harbor an occasion for glorifying General McClellan, their candidate for the Presidency.

"Grant is a butcher.

He has sacrificed a hundred thousand lives. He acts under Lincoln's orders. Elect McClellan, and we shall have peace."

The army was dejected, but did not lose heart. It had been repulsed, had lost many brave men, but it had pushed Lee from the Wilderness to Richmond.

I conversed freely with the soldiers, and rarely found one who had not full confidence in the ability of General Grant. Round their bivouac fires the history of the Army of the Potomac was freely discussed. The old soldiers, who had fought in the first Cold Harbor battle, remembered how twentyseven thousand men held Lee at bay on that ground through the long hours of the first of the seven days' fight in front of Richmond; how McClellan kept sixty thousand men on the south bank of the Chickahominy, inactive, sending a brigade to their aid when too late to be of use. They recalled the scenes of those terrible demoralizing days, -how McClellan kept out of harm's way. When the battle was raging on the north bank of the Chickahominy he was south of it; when Sumner was holding Savage Station, McClellan was across White Oak Swamp; when Glendale was fought, and the Rebels under Hill routed, McClellan was at Malvern, and while Ma

gruder was madly pushing his troops on to be slaughtered at Malvern, McClellan was on board a gunboat; how in the night the whole army was ordered away from a victorious field, from an impregnable position, while Lee was fleeing towards Richmond! Soldiers who had come later into the service remembered the failure at Fredericksburg and the retreat from Chancellorsville, and in contrast saw that Grant had pluck. It is a quality of character which soldiers admire. They could also see that there was system in his movements. They sometimes spoke of him as the Grand Flanker. "He'll flank Lee out of Richmond yet; see if he don't," said a soldier.

If Grant had failed to move Lee from his position in a direct attack, Lee also had failed to drive Grant from the junction of the roads at old Cold Harbor, an important point, as, by opening the railroad from White House, he could easily bring up his supplies. His army was intact, not divided, as McClellan's had been by the dark and sluggish Chickahominy.

"What will Grant do?" was a question often discussed around the mess-tables of brigadiers, colonels, and captains,-by men who were bound to obey all orders, but who nevertheless had their own ideas as to the best method of conducting the campaign. The Lieutenant-General had the whole plan of operations settled for him many times. It was amusing to see the strategic points indicated on the maps.

"He can swing in north of the city upon the high lands. The Chickahominy swamps don't extend above Mechanicsville," said one.

"But how will he get his supplies?"

"Open the Fredericksburg road. It is open now from Aquia Creek to the Rappahannock."

But Grant, instead of opening the road, determined to break it up completely, also the Virginia Central, which runs to Gordonsville, to prevent Lee from moving upon Washington. Up to this time all of his movements, while they were upon Lee's flank, had not uncovered that city; but now Washington would take care of itself.

The plan of the campaign had been well matured by General Grant before he started from Culpepper. He says: