Peyton sadly sheathes the sword he
took from Maxime Valois' dead hands. Southward, he takes his way.
Virginia is now only a graveyard and one vast deserted battle-field.
The strangers' bayonets are shining at Richmond. He cannot revisit
the scenes of his boyhood. A craving seizes him for new scenes
and strange faces. He yearns to blot out the war from his memory.
He dreams of Mexico, Cuba, or the towering Andes of South America.
His heart is too full to linger near the scenes where the red
earth lies heaped over his brethren of the sword. Back to Atlanta
he travels, with the returning fragments of the men who are now
homeward bound. All is silent now. From wood and hill no rattling
fire wakes the stillness of these days. The blackened ruins and
the wide swath cut by Sherman tell him how true was the prediction
that the men of the Northwest would "hew their way to the Gulf
with their swords." He finds the grave of Valois, when dismantled
and crippled Atlanta receives him again. Standing there, alone, the
pageantry of war has rolled away. The battle-fields are covered
with wild roses. The birds nest in the woods where Death once reigned
supreme. High in the air over Atlanta the flag of the country waves,
on the garrison parade, with not a single star erased.
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