ss for others, it portrayed mountain storm, valley freshet, and
heart-breaking night marches beside tottering guns in the straining,
sucking, leaden-heavy, red clay, and then, raptly, the glories of
sunrise and sunset over the contours of the Blue Ridge. And it explained
the countless things which happily enable a commander to keep himself as
busy as a mud-dauber, however idle the camp or however torn his own
heart.

From Anna's side came such stories as that of a flag presentation to the
_Sumter_, wherein she had taken some minor part; of seeing that slim
terror glide down by Callender House for a safe escape through the
blockading fleet to the high seas and a world-wide fame; of Flora's
towboat privateer sending in one large but empty prize whose sale did
not pay expenses, and then being itself captured by the blockaders; of
"Hamlet" given by amateurs at the St. Charles Theatre; of great distress
among the poor, all sorts of gayeties for their benefit, bad money, bad
management, a grand concert for the army in Arkansas, women in mourning
as numerous as men in uniform, and both men and women breaking down in
body and mind under the universal strain.

Historically valuable, you see. Yet through all this impersonal
interchange love shone out to love like lamplight through the blinds of
two opposite closed windows, and every heart-hiding letter bore enough
interlinear revealment of mind and character to keep mutual admiration
glowing and growing. We might very justly fancy either correspondent
saying at any time in those ten months to impatient or compassionate
Cupid what Hilary is reported to have said on one of the greatest days
between Manassas and Shiloh, in the midst of a two-sided carnage: "Yes,
General, hard hit, but please don't put us out of action."

XXXIV

A FREE-GIFT BAZAAR

Again it was February. The flag of Louisiana whose lone star and red and
yellow stripes still hovered benignly over the Ionic marble porch of the
city hall, was a year old. A new general, young and active, was in
command of all the city's forces, which again on the great Twenty-second
paraded. Feebly, however; see letters to Irby and Mandeville under
Brodnax in Tennessee, or to Kincaid's Battery and its commander in
Virginia. For a third time the regimental standards were of a new sort.
They were the battle-flag now. Its need had been learned at Manassas;
eleven stars on St. Andrew's Cross, a field blood red, and the cross
sp