Chickamauga
had gone for nothing, the whole flank of the Confederacy was turned and
the Army of Northern Virginia remained the one great barrier against the
invading legions of the North. Yet the confidence of the men in that
army remained undimmed. They felt that on their own ground, and under
such a man as Lee, they were invincible.
In the course of these months Harry, as a messenger and often as a
secretary, was very close to Lee. He wrote a swift and clear hand,
and took many dispatches. Almost daily messages were sent in one
direction or another and Harry read from them the thoughts of his leader,
which he kept locked in his breast. He knew perhaps better than many an
older officer the precarious condition of the Confederacy. These letters,
which he took from dictation, and the letters from Richmond that he read
to his chief, told him too plainly that the limits of the Confederacy
were shrinking. Its money declined steadily. Happy Tom said that he had
to "swap it pound for pound now to the sutlers for groceries." Yet it
is the historical truth that the heart of the Army of Northern Virginia
never beat with more fearless pride, as the famous and "bloody" year of
'63 was drawing to its close.
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