ur own, and more than held it. We have beat back Scott and McClellan,
and now we have thrashed Pope; and Stonewall Jackson has won a dozen
battles in West Virginia. But you must remember that in other parts they
are gradually closing in; all the ports not already taken are closely
blockaded. They are pushing all along the lines of the great rivers; and
worst of all, they can fill up their vacancies with hired emigrants, and
as fast as one army disappears another takes its place. I believe we
shall beat them again and again, and shall prove, as we have proved
before, that one Southerner fighting for home and liberty is more than a
match for two hired soldiers, even with a good large sprinkling of
Yankees among them. But in the long run I am not sure that we shall win,
for they can go on putting big armies into the field, while some day we
must get used up.

"Of course it is possible that we may some day capture Washington, and
that the North may get weary of the tremendous drain of money and men
caused by their attempt to conquer us. I hope it may be so, for I should
like to think that we should win in the long run. I never feel any doubt
about our winning a battle when we begin. My only fear is that we may
get used up before the North are tired of it."

"I did not expect to hear you talk so, Wingfield, for you always seem to
be in capital spirits."

"I am in capital spirits," Vincent replied, "and ready to fight again
and again, and always confident we shall lick the Yankees; the fact that
I have a doubt whether in the long run we shall outlast them does not
interfere in the slightest degree with my comfort at present. I am very
sorry though that this fellow Pope is carrying on the war so brutally,
instead of in the manner in which General McClellan and the other
commanders have waged it. His proclamation that the army must subsist
upon the country it passes through gives a direct invitation to the
soldiers to pillage, and his order that all farmers who refuse to take
the oath to the Union are to be driven from their homes and sent down
South means ruin to all the peaceful inhabitants, for there is scarcely
a man in this part of Virginia who is not heartily with us."

"I hear," one of the other officers said, "that a prisoner who was
captured this morning says that Pope already sees that he has made a
mistake, and that he yesterday issued a fresh order saying that the
proclamation was not meant to authorize pillage.