Peyton thinks with an almost breaking heart of all these sacrifices
for the Lost Cause. By his friend's grave he feels that an awful
price has been paid for the glories of the short-lived Confederacy.
The noble-hearted Virginian dares not hope that there may yet be
found golden bands of brotherhood to knit together the children of
the men who fought under gray and blue. Frankly acknowledging the
injustice of the early scorn of the Northern foe, he knows, from
glances cast backward over the storied fields, the vigor of the
North was under-estimated. The men of Donelson, Antietam, Stone
River, Vicksburg, awful Gettysburg, of Winchester, and Five Forks,
are as true and tried as ever swung a soldier's blade.
He has seen the country's flag of stars stream out bravely against
the tide of defeat. If American valor needs a champion the men
who saw the "Yankees" at Seven Pines, Gaines Mill, Marye's Heights,
and holding in fire and flame the batteries of Corinth and Knoxville,
will swear the embittered foes were worthy of each other.
The defeated Confederate veteran, as he plucks a rose from the grass
growing over the gallant Valois, bitterly remembers the useless
sacrifices of the whole Southern army to the "Virginia policy.
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