HOPE WAS ROLLING HIGH in every Southern heart as the summer of 1863 came in. Despiteprivation and hardships, despite food speculators and kindred scourges, despite death and sicknessand suffering which had now left their mark on nearly every family, the South was again saying“One more victory and the war is over,” saying it with even more happy assurance than in thesummer before. The Yankees were proving a hard nut to crack but they were cracking at last.

　　Christmas of 1862 had been a happy one for Atlanta, for the whole South. The Confederacy hadscored a smashing victory at Fredericksburg and the Yankee dead and wounded were counted inthe thousands. There was universal rejoicing in that holiday season, rejoicing and thankfulness thatthe tide was turning. The army in butternut were now seasoned fighters, their generals had proventheir mettle, and everyone knew that when the campaign reopened in the spring, the Yankeeswould be crushed for good and all.

　　Spring came and the fighting recommenced. May came and the Confederacy won another greatvictory at Chancellorsville. The South roared with elation.

　　Closer at home, a Union cavalry dash into Georgia had been turned into a Confederate triumph.

　　Folks were still laughing and slapping each other on the back and saying: “Yes, sir! When oldNathan Bedford Forrest gets after them, they better git!” Late in April, Colonel Straight andeighteen hundred Yankee cavalry had made a surprise raid into Georgia, aiming at Rome, only alittle more than sixty miles north of Atlanta. They had ambitious plans to cut the vitally importantrailroad between Atlanta and Tennessee and then swing southward into Atlanta to destroy thefactories and the war supplies concentrated there in that key city of the Confederacy.

　　It was a bold stroke and it would have cost the South dearly, except for Forrest. With only one-third as many men—but what men and what riders!—he had started after them, engaged thembefore they even reached Rome, harassed them day and night and finally captured the entire force!

　　The reached Atlanta almost simultaneously with the news of the victory atChancellorsvi(news) lle, and the town fairly rocked with exultation and with laughter. Chancellorsvillemight be a more important victory but the capture of Streight’s raiders made the Yankees positivelyridiculous.

　　“No, sir, they’d better not fool with old Forrest,” Atlanta said gleefully as the story was told overand over.

　　The tide of the Confederacy’s fortune was running strong and full now, sweeping the peoplejubilantly along on its flood. True, the Yankees under Grant had been besieging Vicksburg sincethe middle of May. True, the South had suffered a sickening loss when Stonewall Jackson had beenfatally wounded at Chancellorsville. True, Georgia had lost one of her bravest and most brilliantsons when General T. R. R. Cobb had been killed at Fredericksburg. But the Yankees just couldn’tstand any more defeats like Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. They’d have to give in, and thenthis cruel war would be over.

　　The first days of July came and with them the rumor, later confirmed by dispatches, that Leewas marching into Pennsylvania. Lee in the enemy’s territory! Lee forcing battle! This was the last fight of the war!

　　Atlanta was wild with excitement, pleasure and a hot thirst for vengeance. Now the Yankeeswould know what it meant to have the war carried into their own country. Now they’d know whatit meant to have fertile fields stripped, horses and cattle stolen, houses burned, old men and boysdragged off to prison and women and children turned out to starve.

　　Everyone knew what the Yankees had done in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

　　Even small children could recite with hate and fear the horrors the Yankees had inflicted upon theconquered territory. Already Atlanta was full of refugees from east Tennessee, and the town hadheard firsthand stories from them of what suffering they had gone through. In that section, theConfederate sympathizers were in the minority and the hand of war fell heavily upon them, as itdid on all the border states, neighbor informing against neighbor and brother killing brother. Theserefugees cried out to see Pennsylvania one solid sheet of flame, and even the gentlest of old ladieswore expressions of grim pleasure.

　　But when the trickled back that Lee had issued orders that no private property in Pennsylvaniashouldbe(news) touched, that looting would be punished by death and that the army wouldpay for every article it requisitioned—then it needed all the reverence the General had earned tosave his popularity. Not turn the men loose in the rich storehouses of that prosperous state? Whatwas General Lee thinking of? And our boys so hungry and needing shoes and clothes and horses!

　　A hasty note from Darcy Meade to the doctor, the only first-hand information Atlanta receivedduring those first days of July, was passed from hand to hand, with mounting indignation.

　　“Pa, could you manage to get me a pair of boots? I’ve been barefooted for two weeks now and Idon’t see any prospects of getting another pair. If I didn’t have such big feet I could get them offdead Yankees like the other boys, but I’ve never yet found a Yankee whose feet were near as big asmine. If you can get me some, don’t mail them. Somebody would steal them on the way and Iwouldn’t blame them. Put Phil on the train and send him up with them. I’ll write you soon, wherewe’ll be. Right now I don’t know, except that we’re marching north. We’re in Maryland now andeverybody says we’re going on into Pennsylvania. …“Pa, I thought that we’d give the Yanks a taste of their own medicine but the General says No,and personally I don’t care to get shot just for the pleasure of burning some Yank’s house. Pa,today we marched through the grandest cornfields you ever saw. We don’t have corn like this downhome. Well, I must admit we did a bit of private looting in that corn, for we were all pretty hungryand what the General don’t know won’t hurt him. But that green corn didn’t do us a bit of good.

　　All the boys have got dysentery anyway, and that corn made it worse. It’s easier to walk with a legwound than with dysentery. Pa, do try to manage some boots for me. I’m a captain now and acaptain ought to have boots, even if be hasn’t got a new uniform or epaulets.”

　　But the army was in Pennsylvania—that was all that mattered. One more victory and the warwould be over, and then Darcy Meade could have all the boots he wanted, and the boys wouldcome marching home and everybody would be happy again. Mrs. Meade’s eyes grew wet as shepictured her soldier son home at last, home to stay.

　　On the third of July, a sudden silence fell on the wires from the north, a silence that lasted till midday of the fourth when fragmentary and garbled reports began to trickle into headquarters inAtlanta. There had been hard fighting in Pennsylvania, near a little town named Gettysburg, a greatbattle with all Lee’s army massed. The news was uncertain, slow in coming, for the battle had beenfought in the enemy’s territory and the reports came first through Maryland, were relayed toRichmond and then to Atlanta.

　　Suspense grew and the beginnings of dread slowly crawled over the town. Nothing was so badas not knowing what was happening. Families with sons at the front prayed fervently that theirboys were not in Pennsylvania, but those who knew their relatives were in the same regiment withDarcy Meade clamped their teeth and said it was an honor for them to be in the big fight thatwould lick the Yankees for good and all.

　　In Aunt Pitty’s house, the three women looked into one another’s eyes with fear they could notconceal. Ashley was in Darcy’s regiment.

　　On the fifth came evil tidings, not from the North but from the West. Vicksburg had fallen, fallenafter a long and bitter siege, and practically all the Mississippi River, from St. Louis to NewOrleans was in the hands of the Yankees. The Confederacy had been cut in two. At any other time,the news of this disaster would have brought fear and lamentation to Atlanta. But now they couldgive little thought to Vicksburg. They were thinking of Lee in Pennsylvania, forcing battle.

　　Vicksburg’s loss would be no catastrophe if Lee won in the East. There lay Philadelphia, NewYork, Washington. Their capture would paralyze the North and more than cancel off the defeat onthe Mississippi.

　　The hours dragged by and the black shadow of calamity brooded over the town, obscuring thehot sun until people looked up startled into the sky as if incredulous that it was clear and blueinstead of murky and heavy with scudding clouds. Everywhere, women gathered in knots, huddledin groups on front porches, on sidewalks, even in the middle of the streets, telling each other thatno news is good news, trying to comfort each other, trying to present a brave appearance. Buthideous rumors that Lee was killed, the battle lost, and enormous casualty lists coming in, fled upand down the quiet streets like darting bats. Though they tried not to believe, wholeneighborhoods, swayed by panic, rushed to town, to the newspapers, to headquarters, pleading fornews, any news, even bad news.

　　Crowds formed at the depot, hoping for news from incoming trains, at the telegraph office, infront of the harried headquarters, before the locked doors of the newspapers. They were oddly stillcrowds, crowds that quietly grew larger and larger. There was no talking. Occasionally an oldman’s treble voice begged for news, and instead of inciting the crowd to babbling it onlyintensified the hush as they heard the oft-repeated: “Nothing on the wires yet from the Northexcept that there’s been fighting.” The fringe of women on foot and in carriages grew greater andgreater, and the heat of the close-packed bodies and dust rising from restless feet were suffocating.

　　The women did not speak, but their pale set faces pleaded with a mute eloquence that was louderthan wailing.

　　There was hardly a house in town that had not sent away a son, a brother, a father, a lover, ahusband, to this battle. They all waited to hear the news that death had come to their homes. Theyexpected death. They did not expect defeat. That thought they dismissed. Their men might be dying, even now, on the sun-parched grass of the Pennsylvania hills. Even now the Southern ranksmight be falling like grain before a hailstorm, but the Cause for which they fought could never fall.

　　They might be dying in thousands but, like the fruit of the dragon’s teeth, thousands of fresh menin gray and butternut with the Rebel yell on their lips would spring up from the earth to take theirplaces. Where these men would come from, no one knew. They only knew, as surely as they knewthere was a just and jealous God in Heaven, that Lee was miraculous and the Army of Virginiainvincible.

　　Scarlett, Melanie and Miss Pittypat sat in front of the Daily Examiner office in the carriage withthe top back, sheltered beneath their parasols. Scarlett’s hands shook so that her parasol wobbledabove her head, Pitty was so excited her nose quivered in her round face like a rabbit’s, butMelanie sat as though carved of stone, her dark eyes growing larger and larger as time went by.

　　She made only one remark in two hours, as she took a vial of smelling salts from her reticule andhanded it to her aunt, the only time she had ever spoken to her, in her whole life, with anything buttenderest affection.

　　“Take this, Auntie, and use it if you feel faint. I warn you if you do faint you’ll just have to faintand let Uncle Peter take you home, for I’m not going to leave this place till I hear about—till Ihear. And I’m not going to let Scarlett leave me, either.”

　　Scarlett had no intention of leaving, no intention of placing herself where she could not have thefirst news of Ashley. No, even if Miss Pitty died, she wouldn’t leave this spot. Somewhere, Ashleywas fighting, perhaps dying, and the newspaper office was the only place where she could learn thetruth.

　　She looked about the crowd, picking out friends and neighbors, Mrs. Meade with her bonnetaskew and her arm though that of fifteen-year-old Phil; the Misses McLure trying to make theirtrembling upper lips cover their buck teeth; Mrs. Elsing, erect as a Spartan mother, betraying herinner turmoil only by the straggling gray locks that hung from her chignon; and Fanny Elsingwhite as a ghost (Surely Fanny wouldn’t be so worried about her brother Hugh. Had she a realbeau at the front that no one suspected?) Mrs. Merriwether sat in her carriage patting Maybelle’shand. Maybelle looked so very pregnant it was a disgrace for her to be out in public, even if shedid have her shawl carefully draped over her. Why should she be so worried? Nobody had heardthat the Louisiana troops were in Pennsylvania. Probably her hairy little Zouave was safe inRichmond this very minute.

　　There was a movement on the outskirts of the crowd and those on foot gave way as Rhett Butlercarefully edged his horse toward Aunt Pitty’s carriage. Scarlett thought: He’s got courage, cominghere at this time when it wouldn’t take anything to make this mob tear him to pieces because heisn’t in uniform. As he came nearer, she thought she might be the first to rend him. How dared hesit there on that fine horse, in shining boots and handsome white linen suit so sleek and well fed,smoking an expensive cigar, when Ashley and all the other boys were fighting the Yankees,barefooted, sweltering in the heat, hungry, their bellies rotten with disease?

　　Bitter looks were thrown at him as he came slowly through the press. Old men growled in theirbeards, and Mrs. Merriwether who feared nothing rose slightly in her carriage and said clearly:

　　“Speculator!” in a tone that made the word the foulest and most venomous of epithets. He paid noheed to anyone but raised his hat to Melly and Aunt Pitty and, riding to Scarlett’s side, leaneddown and whispered: “Don’t you think this would be the time for Dr. Meade to give us his familiarspeech about victory perching like a screaming eagle on our banne............