"As soon as General Cornwallis surrenders I shall ask for a furlough, and come home for my final answer. Oh, my Ellen, dearest of dear ones, will you not crown my rejoicing, make of true worth to me our hard-won victory! and fill one patriot's breast with that supreme happiness of love accepted and returned which is the wine of men's souls, the one elixir which can furnish them with courage and inspiration for the constantly repeated struggles and continually renewed efforts of life!
"May that God who is your God and mine, the God of your fathers and the God of mine, come to you in dream or vision, through word of saint or prophet, and open your eyes to see, as I see, that destiny which is the noblest and holiest for woman! Yet always, dear one, whether the happiest, or the most sorely bereft of men, I shall be
"Your true and loyal friend, your sworn knight, your devoted lover,
My candle sputtered feebly in its last effort to do its duty as I folded and sealed my letter. As I crossed the camp in search of the courier, the formless dull gray of the eastern landscape was suddenly aroused by the yet unrealized promise of the coming sun, and soon appeared a glow of life, under whose influence the bolder features of the landscape began slowly to assume their natural forms. Half an hour later, when I was returning to my tent, the whole east was glowing gorgeously and every smallest detail of the landscape was limned in vivid light. Nature was pulsing with life in every part, beneath the first kiss of the sun. So would a word of kindness from Ellen scatter the heavy, chill mist from my heart, and set my whole nature a-quiver with a new life of hope and joy.
To history belongs the record of those brave days when American and Frenchman vied with one another in deeds of daring gallantry, and when hour by hour our long delayed reward came nearer. General Cornwallis made a brave resistance, and delayed surrender almost to the point of madness. Our final exultation--the day Cornwallis gave up his sword, and the long line of our prisoners marched between our lines to stack arms--was, indeed, much softened by respectful admiration and sympathy for our gallant late foes, and their broken-hearted General.