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342 sonal appeal to President Davis, feeling assured that when he heard my story he would appreciate the motives which animated me, and would use his influence to have me assigned to such duty as I was best qualified to perform in a satisfactory manner. This resolve having once been made, I prepared, without more delay, to visit the capital of the Confederacy, leaving behind me Atlanta, with its mingled memories of pleasure and pain. The military situation at this time the autumn of 1863 was of painful interest, and the fate of the Confederacy seemed to hang trembling in the balance. In Virginia, General Lee was defending Richmond with all his old success, and was holding one immense army in check so effectively that the prospect of ever entering the Confederate capital as conquerors must have seemed to the enemy more remote than ever. In the West and South, however, the Confederates had lost much, and the question now with them was, whether they would be able to hold what they had until the Federals were tired out and exhausted, or until England and France, wearied of the prolonged contest, consented 'to aid in terminating it by recognizing the Confederacy, and perhaps by armed intervention. It was known that there were dissensions at the North, and that there was a strong anti-war party, which it was expected would, ere long, make its power felt as it had never done before; and if the South could hold out for a season longer, would insist upon a peace being concluded upon almost any terms. Great expectations were also built upon foreign intervention, which every one felt had been delayed longer than there was any just reason for, but which it was thought could not but take place shortly. Every little while exciting rumors were set afloat, no one knew how or by whom, that either France or England had recognized the Confederacy, and many bitter disappointments were caused when their falsity was proved. The people, however, hoped on, getting poorer and poorer every day, and eagerly watching the progress of the campaign around Chattanooga.

The Mississippi River was now entirely in the hands of the Federals, and not only were the trans- Mississippi states, as far as any effective military or political co-operation was con-