Chapter 16

THE GREAT REVIVAL

Two men sat early the next morning in a tent with a pot of coffee and a breakfast of strips of bacon between them. One was elderly, calm and grave, and his face was known well to the army; the other was youngish, slight, dark and also calm, and the soldiers were not familiar with his face. They were General Lee and Mr. Sefton.

The Secretary had arrived from Richmond just before the dawn with messages of importance, and none could tell them with more easy grace than he. He was quite unembarrassed now as he sat in the presence of the great General, announcing the wishes of the Government--wishes which lost no weight in the telling, and whether he was speaking or not he watched the man before him with a stealthy gaze that nothing escaped.

"The wishes of the Cabinet are clear, General Lee," he said, "and I have been chosen to deliver them to you orally, lest written orders by any chance should fall into the hands of the enemy."

"And those wishes are?"

"That the war be carried back into the enemy's own country. It is better that he should feel its ills more heavily than we. You will recall, General, how terror spread through the North when you invaded Pennsylvania. Ah, if it had not been for Gettysburg!"

He paused and looked from under lowered eyelashes at the General. There had been criticism of Lee because of Gettysburg, but he never defended himself, taking upon his shoulders all the blame that might or might not be his. Now when Mr. Sefton mentioned the name of Gettysburg in such a connection his face showed no change. The watchful Secretary could not see an eyelid quiver.

"Yes, Gettysburg was a great misfortune for us," said the General, in his usual calm, even voice. "Our troops did wonders there, but they did not win."

"I scarcely need to add, General," said the Secretary, "that the confidence of the Government in you is still unlimited."

Then making deferential excuses, Mr. Sefton left the tent and Lee followed his retreating figure with a look of antipathy.

The Secretary wandered through the camp, watching everything. He had that most valuable of all qualities, the ability to read the minds of men, and now he set himself to the discovery of what these simple soldiers, the cannon food, were thinking. He did it, too, without attracting any attention to himself, by a deft question here, a suggestion there, and then more questions, always indirect, but leading in some fashion to the point. Curiously, but truly, his suggestions were not optimistic, and after he talked with a group of soldiers and passed on the effect that he left was depressing. He, too, looked across toward the Northern lines, and, civilian though he was, he knew that their tremendous infolding curve was more than twice as great as that forming the lines of the South. A