But it has
been done by One who knows best, and after all I am glad that you have
been in such close contact with two of the greatest and highest-minded
soldiers of the ages, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. I do not
think of them merely as soldiers, but as knights and champions with
flaming swords. One of them, alas! is gone, but we have the other,
and if man can conquer he will. Here in the West we repose our faith in
Lee, as surely as do you in the East, you who see his face and hear his
voice every day.
I have had two or three letters from Pendleton. That part of the State
is for the present outside the area of conflict, though I hear that the
guerilla bands to the east in the mountains still vex and annoy, and
that Skelly is growing bolder. I foresee the time when we shall have to
reckon with this man, who is a mere brigand.
I hear that the prospects for fruit in our orchards were never finer.
You will remember how you prowled in them when you were a little boy,
Harry, and what a pirate you were among the apples and peaches and pears
and good things that grew on tree and bush and briar in that beautiful
old commonwealth of ours. I often upbraided you then, but I should like
to see you now, far out on a bough as of old, reaching for a big yellow
pear, or a red, red bunch of cherries! Alas! there are many lads who
will never return, who will never see the pear trees and the cherry trees
again, but I repeat I cannot feel that you will be among them.
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