I never knew him to urge this reason. Even the officials who must have
seen him there fifty times were sympathetic; and they told me to see

the justice, and they believed he would let him out for next day.
I applied to him as they suggested. He said, "Come down to court

to-morrow morning." I did so. "No. 4" was present, pale and trembling.
As he stood there he made a better defence than any one else could have made

for him. He admitted his guilt, and said he had nothing to say in extenuation
except that it was the "old story", he "had not intended it; he deserved

it all, but would like to get off that day; had a special reason for it,
and would, if necessary, go back to jail that evening and stay there a year,

or all his life." As he stood awaiting sentence, he looked like
a damned soul. His coat was unbuttoned, and his old, faded gray jacket

showed under it. The justice, to his honor, let him off: let all offenders
off that day. "No. 4" shook hands with him, unable to speak, and turned away.

Then he had a strange turn. We had hard work to get him to go
into the procession. He positively refused; said he was not fit to go,

or to live; began to cry, and took off his jacket. He would go back to jail,
he said. We finally got him straight; accepted from him a solemn promise

not to touch a drop till the celebration was over, so help him God,
and sent him off to join his old command at the tobacco-warehouse on the slip

where the cavalry rendezvoused. I had some apprehension that he would not
turn up in the procession; but I was mistaken. He was there with the old

cavalry veterans, as sober as a judge, and looking every inch a soldier.
It was a strange scene, and an impressive one even to those whose hearts

were not in sympathy with it in any respect. Many who had been
the hardest fighters against the South were in sympathy with much of it,

if not with all. But to those who were of the South, it was sublime.
It passed beyond mere enthusiasm, however exalted, and rested in

the profoundest and most sacred deeps of their being. There were many cheers,
but more tears; not tears of regret or mortification, but tears of sympathy

and hallowed memory. The gayly decorated streets, in all the bravery
of fluttering ensigns and bunting; the martial music of many bands;

the constant tramp of marching troops; the thronged sidewalks,
verandas, and roofs; the gleam of polished arms and glittering uniforms;

the flutter of gay garments, and the smiles of beautiful women
sweet with sympathy; the long line of old soldiers, faded and broken and gray,

yet each self-sustained, and inspired by the life of the South
that flowed in their veins, marching under the old Confederate battle-flags

that they had borne so often in victory and in defeat -- all contributed
to make the outwardpageant a scene never to be forgotten. But this was

merely the outward image; the real fact was the spirit. It was the South.
It was the spirit of the South; not of the new South, nor yet merely

of the old South, but the spirit of the great South. When the young troops
from every Southern State marched by in their fresh uniforms,

with well-drilled battalions, there were huzzas, much applause and enthusiasm;
when the old soldiers came there was a tempest: wild cheers

choking with sobs and tears, the well-known, once-heard-never-forgotten cry
of the battling South, known in history as "the rebel yell". Men and women

and children joined in it. It began at the first sight of the regular column,
swelled up the crowded streets, rose to the thronged housetops,

ran along them for squares like a conflagration, and then came rolling back
in volume only to rise and swell again greater than before. Men wept;

children shrilled; women sobbed aloud. What was it! Only a thousand or two
of old or aging men riding or tramping along through the dust of the street,

under some old flags, dirty and ragged and stained. But they represented
the spirit of the South; they represented the spirit which when honor

was in question never counted the cost; the spirit that had stood up
for the South against overwhelming odds for four years, and until the South

had crumbled and perished under the forces of war; the spirit that is
the strongest guaranty to us to-day that the Union is and is to be;

the spirit that, glorious in victory, had displayed a fortitude
yet greater in defeat. They saw in every stain on those tattered standards

the blood of their noblest, bravest, and best; in every rent
a proof of their glorious courage and sacrifice. They saw in those

gray and careworn faces, in those old clothes interspersed now and then
with a faded gray uniform, the men who in the ardor of their youth had,

for the South, faced death undaunted on a hundred fields, and had never
even thought it great; men who had looked immortality in the eyes,

yet had been thrown down and trampled underfoot, and who were greater
in their overthrow than when glory poured her light upon their upturned faces.

Not one of them all but was self-sustaining, sustained by the South,
or had ever even for one moment thought in his direst extremity

that he would have what was, undone.
The crowd was immense; the people on the fashionable street

up which the procession passed were fortunate; they had the advantage
of their yards and porticos, and they threw them open to the public.

Still the throng on the sidewalks was tremendous, and just before
the old veterans came along the crush increased. As it resettled itself

I became conscious that a little old woman in a rusty black dress
whom I had seen patientlystanding alone in the front line

on the street corner for an hour had lost her position, and had been
pushed back against the railing, and had an anxious, disappointed look

on her face. She had a little, faded knot of Confederate colors
fastened in her old dress, and, almost hidden by the crowd, she was looking

up and down in some distress to see if she could not again get a place from
which she could see. Finally she seemed to give it up, and stood quite still,

tiptoeing now and then to try to catch a glimpse. I saw someone
about to help her when, from a gay and crowded portico above her,

a young and beautiful girl in a white dress, whom I had been observing
for some time as the life of a gay party, as she sat in her loveliness,

a queen on her throne with her courtiers around her, suddenly arose
and ran down into the street. There was a short colloquy.

The young beauty was offering something which the old lady was declining;
but it ended in the young girl leading the older woman gently up

on to her veranda and giving her the chair of state. She was hardly seated
when the old soldiers began to pass.

As the last mounted veterans came by, I remembered that I had
not seen "No. 4"; but as I looked up, he was just coming along.

In his hand, with staff resting on his toe, he carried an old standard
so torn and tattered and stained that it was scarcely recognizable as a flag.

I did not for a moment take in that it was he, for he was not in
the gray jacket which I had expected to see. He was busy looking down

at the throng on the sidewalk, apparently searching for some one
whom he expected to find there. He was in some perplexity,

and pulled in his horse, which began to rear. Suddenly the applause
from the portico above arrested his attention, and he looked toward it

and bowed. As he did so his eye caught that of the old lady seated there.
His face lighted up, and, wheeling his prancing horse half around,

he dipped the tattered standard, and gave the royal salute
as though saluting a queen. The old lady pressed her wrinkled hand

over the knot of faded ribbon on her breast, and made a gesture to him,
and he rode on. He had suddenly grown handsome. I looked at her again;

her eyes were closed, her hands were clasped, and her lips were moving.
I saw the likeness: she was his mother. As he passed me I caught his eye.

He saw my perplexity about the jacket, glanced up at the torn colors,
and pointed to a figure just beyond him dressed in a short, faded jacket.

"No. 4" had been selected, as the highest honor, to carry the old colors
which he had once saved; and not to bear off all the honors from his friend,

he had with true comradeship made Binford Terrell wear his cherished jacket.
He made a brave figure as he rode away, and my cheer died on my lips

as I thought of the sad, old mother in her faded knot, and of the dashing
young soldier who had saved the colors in that unnamed fight.

After that we got him a place, and he did well for several months.
He seemed to be cured. New life and strength appeared to come back to him.

But his mother died, and one night shortly afterward he disappeared,
and remained lost for several days. When we found him he had been brought

to jail, and I was sent for to see about him. He was worse than I had
ever known him. He was half-naked and little better than a madman.

I went to a doctor about him, an old army surgeon, who saw him, and shook
his head. "`Mania a potu'. Very bad; only a question of time," he said.

This was true. "No. 4" was beyond hope. Body and brain were both gone.
It got to be only a question of days, if not of hours.