When Grant crossed the Rapidan with his army of one hundred forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty men Lee faced him with sixty-four thousand. The problem of saving Richmond from the tremendous force under the personal command of the most successful general of the North was not the only danger which threatened the Confederate Capital. Butler was pressing from the Peninsula with forty thousand men along the line of McClellan\'s old march, supported again by the navy.

Jefferson Davis knew the task before Lee to be a gigantic one yet he did not believe that Grant would succeed in reaching Richmond.

The moment the Federal general crossed the Rapidan and threw his army into the tangled forest of the Wilderness, Lee sprang from the jungles at his throat.

Battle followed battle in swift and terrible succession. At Cold Harbor thirty days later the climax came. Grant lost ten thousand men in twenty minutes. The Northern general had set out to hammer Lee to death by steady, remorseless pounding. At the end of a month he had lost more than sixty thousand men and Lee\'s army was as strong as when the fight began.

Grant\'s campaign to take Richmond was the bloodiest and most tragic failure in the history of war. The North in bitter anguish demanded his removal from command. Lincoln stubbornly refused to interfere with his bulldog fighter. He sent him word to hold on and chew and choke.

As Grant in his whirl of blood approached the old battle grounds of McClellan, Davis rode out daily to confer with Lee. He was never more cheerful—never surer of the safety of his Capital. His faith in God and the certainty that he would in the end give victory to a cause so just and holy grew in strength with the report from each glorious field. No doubt of the right or justice of his cause ever entered his mind. Day and night he repeated the lines of his favorite hymn:

"I\'ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand."

Again and again he said to his wife half in soliloquy, half in exalted prayer:

"We can conquer a peace against the world in arms and keep the rights of freemen if we are worthy of the privilege!"

The spirit which animated the patriotic soldiers who followed their commander in this bloody campaign was in every way as high as that which inspired their President.

Jennie spent an hour each day ministering to the sick prisoners who had returned from the North and were unable to go further than Richmond. It was her service of love for Jimmie\'s friends and comrades.

A poor fellow was dying of the want he had endured in prison. He lifted his dimmed eyes to hers:

"Will you write to my wife for me, Miss?"

"Yes—yes—I will."

"And give her my love—"

He paused for breath and fumbled in his pocket.

"I\'ve a letter from her here—read it before you write. Our little girl had malaria. She tried willow tea and everything she could think of for the chills. The doctor said nothin\' but quinine could save her. She couldn\'t get it, the blockade was too tight, and so our baby died—and now I\'m dyin\' and my poor starvin\' girl will have nothin\' to comfort her—but—"

He gasped and lifted himself on his elbow.

"If our folks can just quit free men, it\'s all right. It\'s all right!"

The women and children of Richmond were suffering now for food. The Thirteenth Virginia regiment sent Billy Barton into the city with a contribution for their relief.

Billy delivered it to Jennie with more than a boy\'s pride. There was something bigger in the quiet announcement he made.

"Here\'s one day\'s rations from the regiment, sis," he said—"all our flour, pork, bacon and meal. The boys are fasting to-day. It\'s their love offering to those we\'ve left at home—"

Jennie kissed him.

"It\'s beautiful of you and your men, boy. Give my love to them all and tell them I\'m proud to be their countrywoman—"

"And they\'re proud of their country and their General, too—maybe you wouldn\'t believe it—but every regiment in Lee\'s army has re?nlisted for the war."

She seized Billy\'s hand.

"Come with me—I want you to see the President and tell him what your regiment has done. It\'ll help him."

As they approached the White House a long, piercing scream came through the open windows.

"What on earth?" Jennie exclaimed.

"An accident of some kind," the boy answered, seizing her arm and hurrying forward. Every window and door of the big lonely house set apart on its hill swung wide open, the lights streaming through them, the wind blowing the curtains through the windows. The lights blazed even in the third story.

Mrs. Burton Harrison, the wife of the President\'s Secretary, met them at the door, her eyes red with weeping.

She pressed Jennie\'s hand.

"Little Joe has been killed—"

"Mrs. Davis\' beautiful boy—impossible!"

"He climbed over the bannisters and fell to the brick pavement and died a few minutes after his mother reached his side—"

The girl could make no answer. She had come on a sudden impulse to cheer the lonely leader of her people. Perhaps his need in this dark hour had called her. She thought of Socola\'s story of his mother\'s vision and wondered with a sudden pang of self-pity where the man she loved was to-night.

This beautiful child, named in honor of his favorite brother, was the greatest joy of the badgered soul of the Confederate leader.

Suddenly his white face appeared at the head of the stairs. A courier had come from the battlefield with an important dispatch. Grant and Lee were locked in their death grapple in the Wilderness. He would try even in this solemn hour to do his whole duty.

He passed the sympathetic group murmuring a sentence whose pathos brought the tears again to Jennie\'s eyes.

"Not my will, O Lord, but thine—thine—thine!"

He took the dispatch from the courier\'s hand and held it open for some time, staring at it with fixed gaze.

He searched the courier\'s face and asked pathetically:

"Will you tell me, my friend, what is in it—I—I—cannot read—"

The courier read the message in low tones. A great battle was joined. The fate of a nation hung on its issue. The stricken man drew from his pocket a tiny gold pencil and tried to write an answer—stopped suddenly and pressed his hand on his heart.

Billy sprang to his side and seized the dispatch:

"I\'ll take the message to General Cooper—Mr. President—"

The white face turned to the young soldier and looked at him pitifully:

"Thank you, my son—thank you—it is best—I must have this hour with our little boy—leave me with my dead!"

Jennie stayed to help the stricken home.

She took little Jeff in her arms to rock him to sleep. He drew her head down and whispered:

"Miss Jennie, I got to Joe first after he fell. I knelt down beside him and said all the prayers I know—but God wouldn\'t wake him!"

The girl drew the child close and kissed the reddened eyes. Over her head beat the steady tramp of the father\'s feet, back and forth, back and forth, a wounded lion in his cage. The windows and doors were still wide open, the curtains waving wan and ghostlike from their hangings.

Two days later she followed the funeral procession to the cemetery—thousands of children, each child with a green bough or bunch of flowers to pile on the red mound.

A beautiful girl pushed her way to Jennie\'s side and lifted a handful of snowdrops.

"Please put these on little Joe," she said wistfully. "I knew him so well."

With a sob the child turned and fled. Jennie never learned her name. She turned to the grave again, her gaze fixed on the striking figure of the grief-stricken father, bareheaded, straight as an arrow, his fine face silhouetted against the shining Southern sky. The mother stood back amid the shadows, in her somber wrappings, her tall figure drooped in pitiful grief.

The leader turned quickly from his personal sorrows to those of his country, his indomitable courage rising to greater heights as dangers thickened.

Two weeks later General Sheridan attempted what Dahlgren tried and failed to accomplish.

The President hurried from his office to his home, seized his pistols, mounted his horse and rode out to join Generals Gracie and Ransom who were placing their skeleton brigades to repulse the attack.

The crack of rifles could be distinctly heard from the Executive Mansion.

The mother called her children to prayers. As little Jeff knelt he raised his chubby face and said with solemn earnestness:

"You had better have my pony saddled, and let me go out and help father—we can pray afterwards!"
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