Mr. Dinwiddie came back with a business step. I looked up, but
I would not fear. He laid a pile of letters and papers before
papa, and then sat down to the consideration of some of his
own.
"What is doing at home, Dinwiddie?" papa asked.
"A good deal, since our last advices."
"What? I am tired of reading about it."
"Yes," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "You want me to save you the
trouble?"
"If it is no trouble to you."
"The news is of several advantages gained by the Yankees."
"That won't last," said papa. "But there are always
fluctuations in these things."
"Back in March," Mr. Dinwiddie went on, "there are reported
two engagements in which our troops came off second best - at
Newhern and at Winchester. It is difficult perhaps to know the
exact truth - the papers on the two sides hold such different
language. But the sixth of April there was a furious battle at
Pittsburg Landing, our men headed by Beauregard, Polk and
Sidney Johnston, when our men got the better very decidedly;
the next day came up a sweeping reinforcement of the enemy
under Grant and others, and took back the fortune of war into
their own hands, it seems."
"Perhaps that is doubtful too," observed my father.
"I see Beauregard asked permission to bury his dead."
"Many killed?" asked my father.
"Terribly many. There were large numbers engaged, and fierce
fighting."
So they can do it, I said to myself, amid all my heart-
beating.
"There will be of course, some variation of success," said my
father.
"The pendulum is swung all to one side, in these last news,"
said Mr. Dinwiddie.
"What next?"
"Fort Pulaski is taken."
"Pulaski!" my father exclaimed.
"Handsomely done, after a bombardment of thirty hours."
"I am surprised, I confess," said papa.
"The House of Representatives has passed a bill for the
abolition of slavery in the District."
"Oh, I am glad!" I exclaimed. "That is good."
"Is that all you think good in the news?" said Mr. Dinwiddie a
little pointedly.
"Daisy is a rebel," said papa.
"No, papa; not I surely. I stand by the President and the
Country."
"Then we are rebels, Dinwiddie," said papa, half wearily.
"Half the country is playing the fool, that is clear; and the
whole must suffer."
"But the half where the seat of war is, suffers the most."
"That will not last," said papa. "I know the South."
"I wonder if we know the North," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Farragut
has run the gauntlet of the forts at the mouth of the
Mississippi and taken New Orleans."
"Taken New Orleans!" my father exclaimed again, rising half up
as he lay on the cushions of the divan.
"It was done in style," said Mr. Dinwiddie, looking along the
columns of his paper. "Let me read you this, Mr. Randolph."