JANUARY AND FEBRUARY OF 1864 PASSED, full of cold rains and wild winds, clouded bypervasive gloom and depression. In addition to the defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the centerof the Southern line had caved. After hard fighting, nearly all of Tennessee was now held by theUnion troops. But even with this loss on the top of the others, the South’s spirit was not broken.

　　True, grim determination had taken the place of high-hearted hopes, but people could still find asilver lining in the cloud. For one thing, the Yankees had been stoutly repulsed in September whenthey had tried to follow up their victories in Tennessee by an advance into Georgia.

　　Here in the northwesternmost corner of the state, at Chickamauga, serious fighting had occurredon Georgia soil for the first time since the war began. The Yankees had taken Chattanooga andthen had marched through the mountain passes into Georgia, but they had been driven back withheavy losses.

　　Atlanta and its railroads had played a big part in making Chickamauga a great victory for theSouth. Over the railroads that led down from Virginia to Atlanta and then northward to Tennessee,General Longstreet’s corps had been rushed to the scene of the battle. Along the entire route ofseveral hundred miles, the tracks had been cleared and all the available rolling stock in theSoutheast had been assembled for the movement.

　　Atlanta had watched while train after train rolled through the town, hour after hour, passengercoaches, box cars, flat cars, filled with shouting men. They had come without food or sleep,without their horses, ambulances or supply trains and, without waiting for the rest, they had leapedfrom the trains and into the battle. And the Yankees had been driven out of Georgia, back into Tennessee.

　　It was the greatest feat of the war, and Atlanta took pride and personal satisfaction in the thoughtthat its railroads had made the victory possible.

　　But the South had needed the cheering news from Chickamauga to strengthen its morale throughthe winter. No one denied now that the Yankees were good fighters and, at last, they had goodgenerals. Grant was a butcher who did not care how many men he slaughtered for a victory, butvictory he would have. Sheridan was a name to bring dread to Southern hearts. And, then, therewas a man named Sherman who was being mentioned more and more often. He had risen toprominence in the campaigns in Tennessee and the West, and his reputation as a determined andruthless fighter was growing.

　　None of them, of course, compared with General Lee. Faith in the General and the army wasstill strong. Confidence in ultimate victory never wavered. But the war was dragging out so long.

　　There were so many dead, so many wounded and maimed for life, so many widowed, so manyorphaned. And there was still a long struggle ahead, which meant more dead, more wounded, morewidows and orphans.

　　To make matters worse, a vague distrust of those in high places had begun to creep over thecivilian population. Many newspapers were outspoken in their denunciation of President Davishimself and the manner in which he prosecuted the war. There were dissensions within theConfederate cabinet, disagreements between President Davis and his generals. The currency wasfalling rapidly. Shoes and clothing for the army were scarce, ordnance supplies and drugs werescarcer. The railroads needed new cars to take the place of old ones and new iron rails to replacethose torn up by the Yankees. The generals in the field were crying out for fresh troops, and therewere fewer and fewer fresh troops to be had. Worst of all, some of the state governors, GovernorBrown of Georgia among them, were refusing to send state militia troops and arms out of theirborders. There were thousands of able-bodied men in the state troops for whom the army was frantic, but the government pleaded for them in vain.

　　With the new fall of currency, prices soared again. Beef, pork and butter cost thirty-five dollars apound, flour fourteen hundred dollars a barrel, soda one hundred dollars a pound, tea five hundreddollars a pound. Warm clothing, when it was obtainable at all, had risen to such prohibitive pricesthat Atlanta ladies were lining their old dresses with rags and reinforcing them with newspapers tokeep out the wind. Shoes cost from two hundred to eight hundred dollars a pair, depending onwhether they were made of “cardboard” or real leather. Ladies now wore gaiters made of their oldwool shawls and cut-up carpets. The soles were made of wood.

　　The truth was that the North was holding the South in a virtual state of siege, though many didnot realize it. The Yankee gunboats had tightened the mesh at the ports and very few ships werenow able to slip past the blockade.

　　The South had always lived by selling cotton and buying the things it did not produce, but nowit could neither sell nor buy. Gerald O’Hara had three years’ crops of cotton stored under the shednear the gin house at Tara, but little good it did him. In Liverpool it would bring one hundred andfifty thousand dollars, but there was no hope of getting it to Liverpool. Gerald had changed from awealthy man to a man who was wondering how he would feed his family and his negroes throughthe winter.

　　Throughout the South, most of the cotton planters were in the same fix. With the blockadeclosing tighter and tighter, there was no way to get the South’s money crop to its market inEngland, no way to bring in the necessaries which cotton money had brought in years gone by.

　　And the agricultural South, waging war with the industrial North, was needing so many thingsnow, things it had never thought of buying in times of peace.

　　It was a situation made to order for speculators and profiteers, and men were not lacking to takeadvantage of it. As food and clothing grew scarcer and prices rose higher and higher, the publicoutcry against the speculators grew louder and more venomous. In those early days of 1864, nonewspaper could be opened that did not carry scathing editorials denouncing the speculators asvultures and bloodsucking leeches and calling upon the government to put them down with a hardhand. The government did its best, but the efforts came to nothing, for the government was harriedby many things.

　　Against no one was feeling more bitter than against Rhett Butler. He had sold his boats whenblockading grew too hazardous, and he was now openly engaged in food speculation. The storiesabout him that came back to Atlanta from Richmond and Wilmington made those who hadreceived him in other days writhe with shame.

　　In spite of all these trials and tribulations, Atlanta’s ten thousand population had grown todouble that number during the war. Even the blockade had added to Atlanta’s prestige. From timeimmemorial, the coast cities had dominated the South, commercially and otherwise. But now withthe ports closed and many of the port cities captured or besieged, the South’s salvation dependedupon itself. The interior section was what counted, if the South was going to win the war, andAtlanta was now the center of things. The people of the town were suffering hardship, privation,sickness and death as severely as the rest of the Confederacy; but Atlanta, the city, had gainedrather than lost as a result of the war. Atlanta, the heart of the Confederacy, was still beating full and strong, the railroads that were its arteries throbbing with the never-ending flow of men,munitions and supplies.

　　In other days, Scarlett would have been bitter about her shabby dresses and patched shoes butnow she did not care, for the one person who mattered was not there to see her. She was happythose two months, happier than she had been in years. Had she not felt the start of Ashley’s heartwhen her arms went round his neck? seen that despairing look on his face which was more open anavowal than any words could be? He loved her. She was sure of that now, and this conviction wasso pleasant she could even be kinder to Melanie. She could be sorry for Melanie now, sorry with afaint contempt for her blindness, her stupidity.

　　“When the war is over!” she thought “When it’s over—then ...”

　　Sometimes she thought with a small dart of fear: “What then?” But she put the thought from hermind. When the war was over, everything would be settled, somehow. If Ashley loved her, hesimply couldn’t go on living with Melanie.

　　But then, a divorce was unthinkable; and Ellen and Gerald, staunch Catholics that they were,would never permit her to marry a divorced man. It would mean leaving the Church! Scarlettthought it over and decided that, in a choice between the Church and Ashley, she would chooseAshley. But, oh, it would make such a scandal! Divorced people were under the ban not only of theChurch but of society. No divorced person was received. However, she would dare even that forAshley. She would sacrifice anything for Ashley.

　　Somehow it would come out all right when the war was over. If Ashley loved her so much, he’dfind a way. She’d make him find a way. And with every day that passed, she became more sure inher own mind of his devotion, more certain he would arrange matters satisfactorily when theYankees were finally beaten. Of course, he had said the Yankees “had” them. Scarlett thought thatwas just foolishness. He had been tired and upset when he said it. But she hardly cared whether theYankees won or not. The thing that mattered was for the war to finish quickly and for Ashley tocome home.

　　Then, when the sleets of March were keeping everyone indoors, the hideous blow fell. Melanie,her eyes shining with joy, her head ducked with embarrassed pride, told her she was going to havea baby.

　　“Dr. Meade says it will be here in late August or September,” she said. “I’ve thought—but Iwasn’t sure till today. Oh, Scarlett, isn’t it wonderful? I’ve so envied you Wade and so wanted ababy. And I was so afraid that maybe I wasn’t ever going to have one and, darling, I want adozen!”

　　Scarlett had been combing her hair, preparing for bed, when Melanie spoke and she stopped, thecomb in mid-air.

　　“Dear God!” she said and, for a moment, realization did not come. Then there suddenly leapedto her mind the closed door of Melanie’s bedroom and a knifelike pain went through her, a pain asfierce as though Ashley had been her own husband and had been unfaithful to her. A baby. Ashley’sbaby. Oh, how could he, when he loved her and not Melanie?

　　“I know you’re surprised,” Melanie rattled on, breathlessly. “And isn’t it too wonderful? Oh,Scarlett, I don’t know how I shall ever write Ashley! It wouldn’t be so embarrassing if I could tellhim or—or—well, not say anything and just let him notice gradually, you know—”

　　“Dear God!” said Scarlett, almost sobbing, as she dropped the comb and caught at the marbletop of the dresser for support.

　　“Darling, don’t look like that! You know having a baby isn’t so bad. You said so yourself. Andyou mustn’t worry about me, though you are sweet to be so upset. Of course, Dr. Meade said I was—was,” Melanie blushed, “quite narrow but that perhaps I shouldn’t............