IV
To Mrs. Kilpatrick and her daughter, watching this vast procession from behind the curtains of the windows, the spectacle was by no means an enchanting one. Their belief in the righteousness of the Southern cause amounted to a passion; it was almost a part of their religion, and they prayed for its success with a fervor impossible to describe. It was a cause for which they were prepared to make any sacrifice, and it is no wonder that they watched the army go by with pallid and grief-stricken faces. Their despair would have been of a blacker hue if they had not remembered that, away off in Virginia, Robert Lee was mustering his army against the hosts that were opposing him.
The spectacle of this army in blue marching by was so strange—so impossible, in fact—that their amazement would not have been materially increased if the whole vast array had been lifted in air by a gust of wind, to dissolve and disappear in the swaying and whirling mist.
Presently they saw O'Halloran spur his horse toward the moving files, and touch his
