An upright cannon marks the spot where a scrawny oak once stood on a scarred and baked hillside, outside of the Confederate lines at Vicksburg.  Under the scanty shade of that tree, on the eve of the Nation’s birthday, stood two men who typified the future and the past.  As at Donelson, a trick of Fortune’s had delivered one comrade of old into the hands of another.  Now she chose to kiss the one upon whom she had heaped obscurity and poverty and contumely.  He had ceased to think or care about Fortune.  And hence, being born a woman, she favored him.

The two armies watched and were still.  They noted the friendly greeting of old comrades, and after that they saw the self-contained Northerner biting his cigar, as one to whom the pleasantries of life were past and gone.  The South saw her General turn on his heel.  The bitterness of his life was come.  Both sides honored him for the fight he had made.  But war does not reward a man according to his deserts.

The next day—­the day our sundered nation was born Vicksburg surrendered:  the obstinate man with the mighty force had conquered.  See the gray regiments marching silently in the tropic heat into the folds of that blue army whose grip has choked them at last.  Silently, too, the blue coats stand, pity and admiration on the brick-red faces.  The arms are stacked and surrendered, officers and men are to be parolled when the counting is finished.  The formations melt away, and those who for months have sought each other’s lives are grouped in friendly talk.  The coarse army bread is drawn eagerly from the knapsacks of the blue, smoke quivers above a hundred fires, and the smell of frying bacon brings a wistful look into the gaunt faces.  Tears stand in the eyes of many a man as he eats the food his Yankee brothers have given him on the birthday of their country.

Within the city it is the same.  Stephen Brice, now a captain in General Lauman’s brigade, sees with thanksgiving the stars and stripes flutter from the dome of that court-house which he had so long watched from afar.

Later on, down a side street, he pauses before a house with its face blown away.  On the verge of one of its jagged floors is an old four-posted bed, and beside it a child’s cot is standing pitifully,—­the tiny pillow still at the head and the little sheets thrown across the foot.  So much for one of the navy’s shells.

While he was thinking of the sadness of it all, a little scene was acted:  the side door of the house opened, a weeping woman came out, and with her was a tall Confederate Colonel of cavalry.  Gallantly giving her his arm, he escorted her as far as the little gate, where she bade him good by with much feeling.  With an impulsive movement he drew some money from his pocket, thrust it upon her, and started hurriedly away that he might not listen to her thanks.  Such was his preoccupation that he actually brushed into Stephen, who was standing beside a tree.  He stopped and bowed.