the North have heard more of Beauregard than Johnston, yet I
never hear you mention him. Wasn't it he who commanded at Bull Run?"

"Yes and no. General Beauregard is a superb soldier. He is, it has been
agreed among us, better for a desperate charge, or some sudden
inspiration in an emergency, than the complicated strategy that half
wins a battle before it is begun. For example, at Manassas he would have
been defeated, our whole army captured, if fortune had not exposed
General McDowell's plans before they were completed. As it was, we
should have been driven from the field if General Johnston had not come
up in time and rearranged the Confederate lilies."

"Yes, Jack has described that. Battles, after all, are decided by luck."

"And genius."

"Luck won Waterloo."

"Partly, but genius, too, for Wellington and Bluecher practiced one of
Napoleon's most perfect maxims, and won because he despised them both so
much that he didn't dream them capable of even imitating him. Nor, left
to themselves, would they have been equal to it. But renegade Frenchmen,
taught under Napoleon's eye, prompted them."

"General Johnston was very considerate to us when we came down. I wish
you would make him know how grateful we are."

"Oh, he couldn't be anything else; he is the ideal of a chivalrous
knight."

"Yes, I believe you claim chivalry as your strong point in the South,
and accuse us of being a race of sordid money-getters."

"I don't, for I know better, but our people do. They will learn better
in time. Men who fought as your army fought at Manassas must be more
than mere sordid hucksters."

"And yet it is curious," Mrs. Sprague continued, musingly, "it is we who
are warring for an idea and you are warring for property."

"How do you mean?" Vincent said, quickly.

"You are fighting to continue slavery, to extend it; we to abolish it or
limit it. But even I can see that slavery is doomed. No Northern party
would ever venture to give it toleration after this."

"But if we succeed, it will exist in our union at least."

"Ah, Vincent, can't you see that such a people as ours may be checked,
beaten even, but they will never give up the Union? Why, much as I love
Jack, I would never let him leave the colors while there was an army in
the field. Don't you know every Northern mother has the same feeling?"

"And every Southern mother, too."

"Yes, I believe that, but there's this difference: Your Southern mothers
are counti