Even the General's hat went up, and Griffith rode back alone over the path he had but just come, alone--and unguarded--but with a great load lifted from his shoulders, bound for Washington to make his final report to the President, and then return to the ways and haunts of peace.
"Homeward bound! homeward bound! thank God!" he said, aloud, "with life's worst and hardest duty done. Surely, surely, my part of this terrible straggle is over! It has shadowed me for twenty long years. The future shall be free. Peace has come for me at last!"
_"The days of youth are the days of gladness."_
"Dear Mother," wrote Howard, "I forgot to write last week, but then there wasn't the first thing to tell, so it don't matter. We're just loafing here in camp waiting for the next move. We had a little scrap with the Johnnies ten days ago, but it didn't come to anything on either side. They are sulking in their tents and we are dittoing in ours. But what I began this letter to tell is really funny, and I don't want to forget to write it. The other day a slabsided old woman (you never did see such a funny looking creature. She was worse than the mountaineer class in Virginia, or even than those Hoosiers out there on that farm near ours.) Well, she came to our camp from some place back in the country and asked to see our 'doctor man.' She seemed to think there was but one.
"One of the surgeons had a talk with her, and it turned out that her 'ole man,' as she called her husband, was 'mighty bad off with breakbone fever,' and she had come to see if the Yankee doctor man wouldn't have some kind of stuff that would cure him the first dose. These kinds of folks think our officers and doctors are about omnipotent, because our men are so much better fed and clothed and equipped than the Johnnies are.
"'Ef yoh can't gimme sumpin' fer my ole man, doctah, he's jes boun' ter die,' she kept saying over and over. Well, the doctor questioned her, and came to the conclusion that a good sweat would be about the proper caper to recommend, and he told her to cover him up well, and then to take some sage--they all have that in the garden and mighty little else--and, said he, 'take about so much and put it in something and then measure out exactly one quart of water and boil it and pour over the sage. Then make him drink it just as hot as he can. Now don't forget so much sage and exactly a quart of water.'