“But,” said I, “you assume that the South is fighting for slavery only, whereas her leaders proclaim loudly that she is fighting for self-government.”

“She knows that it would be suicidal to confess that she is fighting for slavery, and she does not confess it even to herself.  But when we say ‘the South,’ let us be sure that we know what we mean.  There are two Souths.  One is the slaveholding aristocracy and their slaves; the other is the common people.  There never was a greater absurdity taught than that which Northern writers and newspapers have spread to the effect that in the South there is no middle class.  The middle class is the South.  This is the South that is right and wholesome and strong.  The North may defeat the aristocracy of the South, and doubtless will defeat it; but never can she defeat the true South, because the principle for which the true South fights is the truth—­at least the germ of truth if not the fulness of it.

“The South is right in her grand desire and end; she is wrong in her present and momentary experiment to attain that end.  So also the North is right in her desire, and wrong in her efforts.

“The true South will not be conquered; the aristocracy only will go down.  Nominally, that is to say in the eyes of unthinking men, the North will conquer the South; but your existing armies will not do it.  The Northern idea of social freedom, unconscious and undeveloped, must prevail instead of the Southern idea of individual freedom; but how prevail?  By means of bayonets?  No; that war in which ideas prevail is note fought with force.  Artillery accomplishes naught.  I can fancy a battlefield where two great armies are drawn up, and the soldiers on this side and on that side are uniformed alike and their flags are alike, but they kill each other till none remains, and nothing is accomplished except destruction; yet the principle for which each fought remains, though all are dead.”

For a time I was speechless.

At length I asked, “But why do you imagine their uniforms and flags alike?”

He replied, “Because flag and uniform are the symbols of their cause, and the real cause, or end, of both, is identical.”

“Doctor,” I began; but my fear was great and I said no more.

IX

KILLING TIME

     “Why, then, let’s on our way in silent sort.”—­SHAKESPEARE.

Lydia was kept busy in the hospital; her evenings, however, were spent with her father.

Before the Army of the Potomac began to arrive, I had recovered all my old vigour, and had become restless through inaction.  Nobody could say when the Eleventh would come.  The troops, as they landed, found roomy locations for their camps, for the rebels were far off at Yorktown, and with only flying parties of cavalry patrolling the country up to our pickets.  I had no duty to do; but for the Doctor’s company time would have been heavy on my hands.