My Soldier was silent for a moment, then continued:
"That man is the one we have just heard maligned; the man to whom I, your Soldier, owes his profession, the one to whom he is indebted for the garlands that were hung around his horse all along the road as he came from Gettysburg, the one whose honesty and courage enabled your Soldier to defy the British fleet at San Juan, and to whom he owes the gratitude of the people of Petersburg who say that he saved their town--that man was Abraham Lincoln."
Months afterward, when the awful news of Lincoln's death came to us, my Soldier exclaimed:
"My God! My God! The South has lost her best friend and protector in this, her direst hour of need!"
My Soldier left me in Richmond when he went away to fight the last battles of the war, telling me to stay until he returned or sent for me. "Now, remember, I shall surely come back," he said. So, like Casabianca, I waited, and not even "the flames that lit the battle's wreck" should frighten me away.
General Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, had, in his thoughtfulness, offered me an opportunity of leaving the Confederate Capital, but remembering that my Soldier had left me there I obediently determined to remain until he came or sent for me. Thanking the Secretary I said:
"I cannot go until the voice that bade me stay calls me."
The days were filled with fear and anguish unspeakable. The clock struck only midnight hours for me.
Rumors of the death of my Soldier were credited (I saw by the look on everybody's face, though no word was said), and I would not ask a question nor let anybody speak to me of him lest an effort be made to prepare me for the sad tidings. The last letter I had received from him was dated the 30th of March, at Hatcher's Run, the extreme right of the Confederate line, most of the letter being written in Chinook, that I only might understand. It contained the following paragraph:
Heavy rains; roads and streams almost impassable. While General Lee was holding a conference with his chiefs this morning a message came from General Fitz Lee, stating that through a prisoner he had learned that the Federal cavalry, fifteen thousand strong, supported by heavy infantry, were at or near Dinwiddie Court-House. This decided the General's plans, and he has placed General Fitz Lee in command of the whole cavalry, Rosser's, W. H. F. Lee's and his own, with orders to march upon Five Forks. I am to support with my small force of artillery and infantry this movement and I take command of the whole force.