One Could Very Easily Have Become Sentimental, And Fancied That He Was Old West Point, Misled And Broken In Spirit,

Admitting in dignified silence his defeat and disgrace to Young West Point, who, with Uncle Sam's shoulder straps and brass

Buttons, could be generously oblivious to the misguidance and treason of the other. We wondered many times if Jefferson Davis regretted his life. He certainly could not have been satisfied with it.

There was more in that meeting than a stranger would have known of. In the splendid dining room where we sat, which was forty feet in length and floored with tiles of Italian marble, as was the entire large basement, it was impossible not to notice the unpainted casing of one side of a window, and also the two immense patches of common gray plaster on the beautifully frescoed walls, which covered holes made by a piece of shell that had crashed through the house during the siege of Vicksburg. The shell itself had exploded outside near the servants' quarters.

Then, again, every warm evening after dinner, during the time he was at the house, Jefferson Davis and Faye would sit out on the grand, marble porch and smoke and tell of little incidents that had occurred at West Point when each had been a cadet there. At some of these times they would almost touch what was left of a massive pillar at one end, that had also been shattered and cracked by pieces of shell from U.S. gunboats, one piece being still imbedded in the white marble.

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