THE ROCK OI CfflCKAMAUGA f/ ;; I 5" GENERAL CHARLES KING 7 V THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAUGA BY GENERAL CHARLES KING AUTHOR OF "The Colonel's Daughter," "Tonio, Son of the Sierras," "The Iron Brigade," "Norman Holt," etc. ILLUSTRATIONS BY GILBERT GAUL and CHAS. J. POST G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYBIGHT, 1907, BY G. W. DILLJNGHAM COMPANY July, 1907) '" The Bocfc of Chioicanwuga TO THE MEMORY OF "The Noblest Roman of Them All 1 CONTENTS Chapter I 9 Chapter II 23 Chapter III 35 Chapter IV 47 Chapter V 56 Chapter VI 67 Chapter VII 80 Chapter VIII .... 91 Chapter IX 103 Chapter X 116 Chapter XI 128 Chapter XII 139 Chapter XIII 152 Chapter XIV .... 163 Chapter XV . . . . .175 Chapter XVI 186 Chapter XVII 200 Chapter XVIII . . . . 212 Chapter XIX 224 Chapter XX .... 234 Chapter XXI 244 Chapter XXII .... 258 Chapter XXIII 270 Chapter XXIV .... 283 Chapter XXV 293 Chapter XXVI .... 306 Chapter XXVII . . . . 316 Chapter XXVIII .... 326 Chapter XXIX . . . . 335 Chapter XXX 34^ Chapter XXXI .... 357 Chapter XXXII 3 6 7 Chapter XXXIII .... 3^4 L'Envoi . 393 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB Guarded by the encircling lines of the'men he loved, the Lion slept against the battle morn of the coming morrow . Frontispiece 292 He lifted the glowing lamp close to the window; let it shine steadily five or ten seconds; then sharply turned it down .... 127 "Young gentlemen of your impulsive temperament would be wise to avoid controversy, especially when they themselves have much to explain" , . . 148 There sat the indomitable soldier in charge of the center, and forget- ful of everything but Palmer's plight and urgent message . . 198 The bullet tore its way up Freeman's extended arm .... 259 THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAUGA. CHAPTER I. The fifes had ceased their shrilling. The hoarse thunder of the drums had rolled away with the wet night wind, westward blowing. Through tautened canvas, here and there, on the pasture lands along the stream, the dull glow of candle light, the murmur of many voices, told of human occupancy where the week before the brood-mares and their spindle-shanked offspring were the only authorized tenants. Flitting about the company streets, like fireflies, the lanterns of the "order- lies" darted from point to point, bringing up invariably with sudden stop at the northward edge of the populous rectangle, and gruff voices could be faintly heard an- nouncing such and such a company "all present, sir," with occasional variation. Tattoo roll-call, as known in the old army, was just over. A typical regiment of western volunteers was getting ready to go to bed. The adjutant, muffled in the cumbersome cape overcoat of the Civil War days, stood trickling rain-drops on the open space well forward from the colonel's tent, and to him the company commanders were in turn doing unwilling deference and making the final report of the day. "The Old Man," as they styled their new colonel, would so have it and they could but obey. io The Rock of Chickamauga* When the last of the ten had said his say, the young officer briefly footed up the result on the bespattered page of his note-book; faced slowly about; considered a mo- ment; said, "That's all, Mullins," to the boy fifer who had been standing by, lantern in hand. Then, with a certain hesitancy in gait and manner, approached the big white marquee, where sat three men at a pine-wood table, faintly lighted by lanterns swung from the ridge-pole. Underneath the forward tent-fly the adjutant halted, for the colonel was speaking earnestly. "This rain won't hurt the pike," said he. "The wagons can make it as well as we can march at least to the Cumberland. We could start at dawn " "Hush!" said the elder soldier present. The colonel stopped short, turned and glanced impa- tiently toward the outer darkness. The lamplight gleamed on the gilt bugle above the dripping cap vizor of the lone officer underneath the fly. "Oh ah, yes! Mr. Adjutant, what is the report?" was the somewhat confused greeting. "Lieutenant Freeman, two corporals and seven pri- vates absent, sir." The colonel lifted three legs of his camp-chair, and pivoted on the fourth as he faced his saluting staff- officer. His companions, juniors in rank, but his seniors in years, exchanged a quick glance, essayed as quickly to appear absorbed in thought and to gaze at vacancy, or the rearward tent wall where stood the colors furled and cased, where hung a newspaper map headlined "The Seat of War in the West," but they lent attentive ears, The Rock of Chickamauga. n "Mr. Freeman?" said the colonel, after the manner of the regular. "Lieutenant Freeman," answered the adjutant, after the manner of the volunteer. "Doesn't Captain Manning know where he is?" "Perhaps, sir, but he doesn't say." The adjutant's hand was still at salute, respectfully, and his eyes were still on the colonel, unflinchingly. Each man at the mo- ment admired, and neither quite liked, the other. The situation was not unusual in the untried force assembled late in '61 under the leadership of Don Carlos Buell. Certain regiments that had come to the field in charge of colonels whose commissions were the award of political activities, past or prospective, found themselves decapi- tated, as a result of being found otherwise unfit for service. That the inefficient colonel should be sent home, if he knew too little, or sent higher to the grade of briga- dier if he knew too much (party politics counting two and army tactics one) the regiment neither much re- gretted nor much opposed. What it did oppose, at first, was its being speedily supplied with a new head, without either the advice or consent of the rest of the body. The th Illinois had expected to hail Lieutenant-colonel Parton as the coming man, Parton being vastly popular and politic. The regiment was affronted when there came instead a stranger, barely thirty years of age, still wearing the shoulder-straps of a first lieutenant of artil- lery, a regular ; a West Pointer ; presumably, therefore, a martinet. Lieutenant-colonel Parton resigned forthwith, and his resignation was forwarded "approved," Lieuten- The Rock of Chickamauga. ant Allis, regimental adjutant, resigned likewise, and his resignation was returned to him as "tendered under probable misapprehension." The regiment, even to the chaplain, had resolved on an attitude of formal, frigid, and most distant respect, as the one best calculated to im- press the new incumbent with a proper sense of his un- desirability, and the new incumbent, so far from being in the least disturbed, had disconcerted the regiment by seeming eminently well content with the demonstration. He had taken hold quietly, firmly, without the faint jst "fuss" or friction; had taught adjutant, quartermaster, sergeant-major, drum-major, officer of the day, officer of the guard, corporal of the guard, sentries, even drum- boys, something new and hitherto unheard of about their work or duties. Within the week that the protest went to Springfield, signed by seven out of every ten of its officers, the regiment was beginning to realize that it didn't know half as much as it thought it did, and no- where near as much as did the new colonel, and when presently there came to them by the hand of the gov- ernor's secretary a brief reply to the effect that, under somewhat similar circumstances, he had made one U. S. Grant, of Galena, colonel of the Twenty-first, to the vast benefit of that regiment, he now looked for like results from the appointment of Howard Rolfe, of Galesburg, to the command of the - th, the regiment concluded, and wisely, to let the governor have his way, thinking none the less of their new commander because he so ob- viously thought so little of them and their futile oppo- sition. All the same, they had set their faces and steeled The Rock of Chickamauga. 13 their soldier hearts against him; were resolved to resent his discipline; were determined to dislike his drill, and, as luck would have it, a spell of sweet weather had come with the colonel, a fortnight of almost Indian summer days had made exquisite the once dreaded November; the slow, solemn battalion evolutions through which they had dragged under the orders of their late lamented be- came all on a sudden charged with electric life and spirit. The new colonel knew his business "from a to izzard," taught like a flash, voiced like a clarion, rode like a cen- taur, and the rank and file were the first to respond. "He's got old Izzy triple-discounted from the start," said they ; and it wasn't a week before even the reluctant Par- ton, looking on from the sulky view-point of a distant corner and general disgust, was wishing to God, as he later admitted, he could recall that resignation; but there sat that cold-blooded, methodical, martinet Buell up at Louisville refusing to hear of it. The only thing left Parton, therefore, was home and a later-day try for an- other regiment. "Young Brick-top's a hummer on drill," said Captain Skinner, of Sangamon, mopping a dripping brow, "but if ever he talks to me as he did last night to Butler, I'll show him." It wasn't ten hours thereafter that Skinner was talked to, not loudly, nor loosely, but with exasperating calm and incisive point, and Skinner did thereupon most bunglingly essay to "show," and was sent to his tent in close arrest, from which martial seclusion he emerged two days later only upon profuse apology and promise to amend, with his ears tingling from the colonel's admonition. 14 The Rock of Chickamauga. Four weeks had they "sampled him," as Captain But- ler expressed it, without finding a flaw in his armor. Then came the case of Lieutenant Freeman and, with it, the first symptom of weakness. Account for it they could not, but the colonel had a soft spot for the first lieutenant of Manning's company, a youth whom none of them seemed to know. He had been of the engineering force of the Illinois Central Rail- way, had helped raise the company, had been duly elected lieutenant, had been East on some mysterious mission be- fore they left Springfield for the front, had but recently rejoined, and that was about all they could tell. "My compliments to Captain Manning," said the colonel, after a moment of silence, as the orderly came at his call. "I wish to see him a moment here." The young soldier, summoned from the shelter of a little tent pitched to the left rear of the colonel's marquee, bobbed his head and backed out from under the fly. "One mo- ment, orderly," said the colonel placidly. "Come back and try that again." Blushing crimson, the country-bred boy returned, drew himself up, raised his hand in the old-fashioned salute of the early war days, his eyes fixed on those of his com- mander; then, with an "about face" that did not even omit "the right hand steadying the cartridge-box," de- spite the fact that the cartridge-box wasn't there, marched away into the drip and drizzle of the December night. The elder staff-officer grinned. "Think you'll ever get that into *em?" he asked. "Most men have quit trying/' "Wait and see," said Rolfe. Then, "I won't detain The Rock of Chickamauga. 15 you, Mr. Adjutant. Find out about the absentees. They can't be far from camp. Good night, sir." And Lieuten- ant Allis, who used to be bidden to come in and sit down a while when the former colonel occupied that tent, went homeward wishing he had been less offish at the start; the new colonel had now so little need of him. The moment he was gone Rolfe whirled his chair about again, the pivot-leg digging deeper into the soil, and faced his soldier visitors, silent, yet with questioning eye. "You were close to letting the cat out of the bag," haz- arded the younger of the two. "It would have gone no farther than him," said Rolfe, his head nodding toward the departing adjutant. "He's square and sound." "Thought you didn't like him," suggested the senior major, with a keen, quick glance from under shaggy brows. "Rather that he didn't like me," was the answer. "He's getting to, in spite of the others and himself. Moreover, he's the best of the lot for the business." Rolfe threw off his forage-cap with something much like impatience, and tossed it on the table. Major Cutler, senior staff-officer that he was, older man, and soldier, was none the less his junior in rank to-day and meddling in matters that did not concern him. Cutler was one of the characters of the old army, and one of Cutler's idio- syncrasies was that which Rolfe most keenly resented Cutler did like to meddle. Being older, presumably wiser, and certainly on the staff of the commanding general, he deemed it his prerogative. Moreover, he had had some- thing to do with Rolfe's commission. Unbeknownst to 1 6 The Rock of Chickamauga. him, to this moment, Cutler had written personally to the Governor of Illinois, with whom he stood on semi-con- fidential terms : "You've got to get rid of old Gummidge Buell simply will not have him and if you wish to revive that regiment my advice to you is to give the com- mand to young Rolfe, of Galesburg. There's a West Pointer, a son of Illinois, a soldier all over, shot at Bull Run fighting his guns to the last, home on leave and crutches. Send for him and sound him." The governor sent, sounded, and, just so soon as Rolfe could kick free the crutch and walk with a cane, despatched him to Louis- ville to report to the but newly arrived commanding gen- eral the Buell who had taken hold with such vigorous, unsparing hand the Buell to whom, when adjutant-gen- eral on the far Pacific coast, young Rolfe had reported on his promotion to a first lieutenancy but the year before. At that time the young soldier was on his way to join the light battery of his regiment in the distant East. Now he had come to take command of a regiment of volun- teers from his native State, and what the general said to him was substantially this: "I hope you can pull the th out of the mud and keep young Freeman out of mischief." Whereat Rolfe's pale, young face went crim- son, a thing Buell's never did. Four days later, report- ing to his earliest brigade commander, far up the Ken- tucky River, he was greeted by that jovial soldier with, "Hello, Rolfe; so you're the Moses to lead the children of Israel out of bondage, are you? Well, look out for young Freeman. Let's see you knew him at the Point The Rock of Chickamauga. 17 when you were in Tactics, I think," whereat Rolfe red-* dened again. Rolfe had known young Freeman at the Point; had been, in fact, a factor in young Freeman's leaving the Point "deficient in discipline," as they would put it to- day ; "found on demerit," as they said in '59. Rolfe had gone from the Academy to the far Pacific a rather un- happy man, for, while his associates and his conscience told him the fault lay with young Freeman, not with him, there were two women who totally refused to see it that way Cadet Freeman's mother and sister, and time had been when Elsie Freeman's opinion meant a lot to How- ard Rolfe. From that time to the date of his joining the th Illinois Rolfe had not set eyes on the light-hearted source of his own heavy-heartedness. He had prepared himself to meet a young officer who would behave with distant hauteur. It wasn't conceivable that the cadet himself should harbor no rancor against his former in- structor and company commander, when his kinsfolk dis- played so much ; but the one officer of the th to greet him joyously, even effusively, was First Lieutenant Free- man, as trim and presentable a young soldier as one would care to see. "Got a lot of the old nick in me yet, colonel," he had laughingly said, "but if anybody can take it out of me, it's you, and the Lord knows I'd like to help you !" Later he had told Rolfe how, after quitting the Point at the end of his "yearling" year, he had gone globe- trotting with "mummie" and his sister a while, back a while for the "cours" at Grenoble, then home for a few 1 8 The Rock of Chickamauga. months at the Troy Polytechnic, and "just managed to scrape through, sir ; never could have done it in God's world if they'd had any regulations worth break- ing." Later still he had joined the engineering force of the Illinois Central, and was trying to persuade them he was worth his keep, or eventually would be, when sud- denly came the war, and rodmen, chainmen, and squads of sectionmen marched with him to the nearest rendez- vous, and that made him a first lieutenant of volunteer in- fantry, "when I'd only been a second luff if I hadn't gone and got swamped in demerit." A smart, soldierly young officer the colonel found him on guard, drill, or parade ; but, once "out of ranks," as it were, Freeman ran wild. The camp was never big enough to hold him. Temptations innumerable lured him on from every side, and the colonel's grave welcome turned to admonition. Twice had Freeman absented himself without permission a whole day and night from camp. Twice had he been brought up smiling, with an apology due the colonel, and now, just when any moment their marching orders might be on them, a dashing lieu- tenant was among the missing and might be left a long day's journey behind. As Captain Manning, in oilskin cap cover, and drip- ping poncho, came rebukefully within view and stood silent at the edge of the fly, Rolfe arose and joined him. "Have you any idea where Mr. Freeman is?" was the question, and for answer the captain turned, peered for a moment through the dripping darkness, and presently focused his gaze on a tiny cluster of lights afar to the The Rock of Chickamauga. 19 flooding southwest, and to this feeble constellation, all other things being shrouded in the universal gloom, the captain pointed. "In my opinion," he said, "the lieutenant's there, and he might better be in Texas !" "What's wrong with the place or the people?" asked Rolfe in genuine anxiety. "Secesh to the marrow an' trying to hide it. Some night Freeman'll be missing for good." And just then, over near the guard-tent, there sounded three solemn, mournful thumps upon a sodden drum- head, and the lights began to go out all over camp to the primitive, old-time call of "Taps," leaving presently none in view but those bale-fires upon the wooded height far beyond the stream. These were the early war days, be it remembered. The forces in the West, at least, were still in their crude and formative state. Drill they were learning with the ease and adaptability of the American. Discipline they were acquiring with slow, reluctant steps, diversified by occa- sional sudden and startling relapse to the long-accus- tomed town-meeting methods of the home folk. There had been much of this go-as-you-please business at the start. Gentle-mannered Anderson, he of Sumter fame, had for a time been placed in chief command, with Louis- ville for headquarters a reward rather for services ren- dered in the past than hoped for in the present. A day's journey farther up-stream, at Cincinnati, the fiery Mitch- ell was forwarding men and munitions over into Ken- tucky. The governors of the bordering States on the The Rock of Chickamauga. upper bank kept constantly in touch with their quotas along the lower, for not yet had the volunteers begun to realize what it meant to belong to Uncle Sam instead of Governor Dick. Anderson, retiring because of phys- ical infirmities, left the command to that blunt, outspoken, and astonishing general recently arrived from Washing- ton, called "crazy" because he said three years and three hundred thousand men would be needed to subdue the South. Three weeks he stirred matters at headquarters, and then begged of the government that they send to su- persede him a man he, too, had known in California that blue-eyed, pale-faced, methodical, machinelike sol- dier who had fought and bled as an infantry subaltern in the Mexican War, who had the gift of organization and system, and "Crazy Sherman" had the deep sagacity to get himself again into the field, and away from the poli- ticians, and to turn over a most vexatious berth to a man stolid, impenetrable, and inflexible, as the best possible selection to impart system and discipline to the forces at the front, and some respect to Federal authority to the statesmen swarming at the rear. And the army was just beginning to know what it was to have a thinking head and a directing hand a hand that could punish as well as point the way when Howard Rolfe came down to replace Israel Gummidge, and "The Children of Israel," as that most independent regiment had been dubbed, began to see a little some- thing of real soldiering. Not yet was Buell ready to trust his raw volunteers in actual battle. Something be- sides enthusiasm and native courage would be needed ere The Rock of Chickamauga. it came to that. Impatient statesmen about Washington had learned it to their cost, and the fiasco of Big Bethel, the disasters of Bull Run and Ball's Bluff had taught them the wisdom of further preparation before again trying conclusions with a foeman equally brave, and fight- ing on his own ground. Not yet could Buell trust his eager men across the Cumberland, where lurked the Southern pickets at every bridge and ford, with strong supports in a score of country towns, and behind them all a soldier the South could swear by, and the North might well hold in dread Albert Sidney Johnston, the fighting Texan of the old army. No, even with Christ- mas close at hand, with the snow clouds shrouding the heavens, and the south winds turning them to rain, the roads to quagmires, and the streams to floods, patience was the word, and practise and preparation the order. Then, all of a sudden, came the rumor that the South had taken the initiative that Johnston had sent his lead- ing divisions to try the mettle of the men in blue and sound the loyalty or disloyalty of the Kentucky home guard that Humphrey Marshall, a soldier of fame, was pounding at Cumberland Gap and pouring over into the valley of the Big Sandy that Zollicoffer, though but a "newspaper general," was sampling the Cumberland crossings and scouting the bordering counties along the northward bank. Then came mounting in hot haste, and couriers sputtering from camp to camp, and orders for the scattered brigades, and staff-officers out from Louis- ville. Which was how Cutler and his comrade Erwin happened here at Rolfe's marquee this wet and dripping 22 The Rock of Chickamauga. night along the west fork, with the regiment turning in for a good, long sleep to the lullaby of the rain drumming on the tautened canvas, with darkness brooding over shore and stream and broad, wet pasture-land so lately turned to drill-ground, with only the faint glow of dis- tant lights, low-lying in the village a mile northeast, with only the tiny sparkle of those "bale-fires" southwestward on the heights. CHAPTER II. Cutler was an odd genius, as has been said a man with a bent, as he believed, for reading motive and hidden purpose, and therefore ever looking for both. Cutler might have won distinction in the days of Machiavelli, and would have sought to supersede Vidocq or Fouche. A dozen years had he dwelt among the simple-minded men of the American Army, with never a chance for em- ployment of his peculiar gift. Frontier service, even on the Pacific coast, bore no opening for intrigue, but now had come a colossal war, with an army to be created, fed, clothed and supplied; with illimitable opportunity for fraud and peculation, for building up and pulling down of men, measures, and reputations, and Cutler at last had found something to work for. Born in the West, schooled when a mere lad in local politics, he had studied hw and served as private secretary in the office of one of the keenest of the rising statesmen of Illinois. Sent to West Point when almost twenty-one, he found himself "Dad" of his class in point of years, and great-grand- father in point of worldly wisdom and experience. Grad- uated in the artillery, he had got the route to California in days when, had he quit the service and gone in for the law and politics, he might have undermined men enough to make way for himself. As it was, he sought to do both, to hang onto the army for the slender but sure maintenance it afforded, and to mingle wherever 24 The Rock of Chickamauga. possible with the seething swarm of politicians whose careers, some of them at least, were made memorable by intrigue and assassination. A butt-headed, stout*- hearted soldier came as commander of the isolated de- partment about that time, and Cutler went, swift and sudden, and very soon thereafter, to the outermost con- fines of the martial bailiwick. Fort Yuma, to the merri- ment of purely military associates and his own deep dis- gust, became Cutler's station for many a day. It was Buell indeed who finally restored him to the possibilities of the Presidio of San Francisco, but there it took time to reestablish himself in other than soldier society, and then came on the war, and only those could and did re- sign whose purpose it was to take the side of the South. And now was afforded opportunity for command in the field, or staff duty in some one of the departments of sup- ply. His patron of old days, the congressman who sent him to the Point, sat high in the seats of the mighty, a man whom the great President had known for years, al- ternately admiring and detesting. Now, in the nation's hour of peril, he needed every helping hand, and had "The Sage of the Sangamon" asked that a star be placed on the shoulder of his protege, no doubt that Cutler would have been so decorated. It was Cutler himself who said he preferred something else a major's commis- sion, to start with, in the Department of Supply. It gave him power and influence over and above that of any brigadier at the front, and his power he thought would surely be doubled when Buell, his friend of California days, came to Kentucky and the chief command; for The Rock of Chickamauga. 25 Buell trusted him as Sherman did not Sherman, who as banker and keen observer, had seen the other side of Cutler in San Francisco. Now, here was a strange situation, all growing out of California service. Sherman, who believed in Buell, had urged his being placed in chief command. Pre- sumably, therefore, Buell should be grateful to Sher- man. Buell, who believed in Cutler, had rescued him from military exile. Presumably Cutler should be grate- ful to Buell. Cutler, who believed in Rolfe, had urged his appointment as colonel of the th. Presumably Rolfe should be grateful to Cutler ; yet Rolfe was already chafing against Cutler's propensity for meddling in mat^ ters connected with the regiment. Cutler was chafing at finding that Buell was independent and dominant to a degree unlocked for when he was adjutant-general, and as for Buell, who could say with what relief he entered on his duties, knowing that Sherman, the erratic, had sought service in another department with a very differ- ent command. Sherman had believed in a certain few among the Kentucky loyalists ; Buell found his ears be- sieged with insinuations against them. It was then that Cutler, chafing under the supervision of headquarters, had suggested to his chief that he should be glad to per- sonally loo': over the condition of the various camps, and incidentally to learn the inside facts as to the loyalty of certain families in mid-Kentucky, and Buell bade him go. For ten days Rolfe had been fretting over the non- action of the governor on his recommendations for the promotion of deserving subalterns and sergeants. Va- 26 The Rock of Chickamauga. cancies had occurred in the commissioned personnel, and the colonel deemed himself the proper man to name the candidates in succession. To his perplexity there was delay, then demur, then intimation that "Colonel Cutler would be out to talk the matter over," and Cutler's com- ing brought the first word that other candidates were being seriously considered men of whom, in most cases, Rolfe did not approve. Then Cutler was found in whis- pered conference with certain of these gentry, and Rolfe's impatient spirit took fire at the sight. "You surely cannot be encouraging such specimens to expect commis- sions in the regiment I command," said he. And Cutler, who knew the buttered side of his political bread, and had not only encouraged but advocated just such ad- vancement for three of the men in question, responded with judicial calm : "They are being backed rather vig- orously at home, you know. It is well to look at both sides." A remark which did not commit himself at all. And now again, before Cutler had been twenty-four hours in his camp, but full a week after that knight-er- rant had set forth from Louisville, he was not only med- dling in matters of promotion, "mixing in" with Rolfe's plans for a forward dash toward Mill Springs and Zolli- cofrer's untutored lines, but he was making odd, semi- significant inquiries and remarks as to Lieutenant Edgar Freeman, in whose career, professional and personal, Rolfe was feeling unusual if not unnatural interest. It was ill-luck, indeed, that just at a time when the visitor seemed primed with significant questions as to Freeman, his haunts and habits, that the young officer himself The Rock of Chickamauga. 27 should turn up missing. The adjutant had boldly an- nounced it; the visitors must have heard. Cutler had a way of looking "pop-eyed," as some one expressed it, with preternatural and owllike wisdom when he knew just what was going on and saw fit to make no mention of it. Cutler's eyes were rolling as Rolfe came gloomily back to his guests, and now were fixed on his finger-tips, close-pressed to each other on his knees. It was Erwin who took up the word. "What's the captain seem to think?" said he. "That Freeman was calling on friends in the neighbor- hood and forgot it was so late," was the brief answer. "Pretty girl, I suppose," hazarded Erwin. "Shouldn't wonder. This is Kentucky. Where the devil did I put that pipe ?" And Colonel "Ruddy," as the regiment had begun to call him in allusion to his auburn hair, was obviously seeking to shift the channel of talk. "H'm," began Cutler, and those who knew him and marked the preliminary roll of the eyes, the downward- pointing, tip-touching, and extended digits, then the fo- cusing of the big, full eyeballs upon them and nothing else were prepared for significant speech. Deliberately the words followed : "There's a family hereabouts Virginian originally we'd like to know something of. Ever since Simon Bol- ivar Buckner came tip in September, and turned every- thing red from Bowling Green to Betsyville, this part of the State has been suffering 1 to follow suit. These people hereabouts have been coaxing Zollicoffer to shove ahead f!om the Cumberland and make himself at home. They 28 The Rock of Chickamauga. keep him posted as to everything going in our camps. They know just whom to sound and whom to touch, and thus far with con-sid-er-able success. Now, ad- mitting that we have some loyal Kentuckians Fry, Gar- rard, Marshall, and Holt, and others, there's no end of 'em gone with the South. It's a toss-up which way a Kentuckian faces this time, but these folks we want to know about are Virginians, and with a Virginian it's dol- lars to doughnuts they go only one way." The patter of rain-drops on the canvas roof alone broke the silence for a moment. Rolfe's brier-root was in vol- canic action and the smoke jutted in feverish puffs. Then, muffled yet rhythmic, the tramp of the "relief" was heard, squashing by in the mud; then the challenge of neigh- boring sentry, a rattle of band and bayonet as the mus- kets came up from "secure" to the shoulder at the cor- poral's command to halt. ' 'Scuse me a moment," said Rolfe abruptly, and with hands in his pockets, and frock coat thrown open, he lunged recklessly out in the rain with a gruff call to the lantern-bearing non-commissioned officer just nearing the dripping sentry. Setting down his lantern, the young soldier hurried over to his com- mander, the relief hunching their shoulders and looking curiously, patiently, on. What possible fault had the "Old Man" to find with their corporal now ? "When you get back to the guard-tent say to the offi- cer of the guard, with my compliments, that I would like to see him while he is making the rounds." "Yes, sir," answered the corporal, and half-turned as though to start. The Rock of Chickamauga. ig "One moment!" ("I thought so," muttered Cutler, peering out from under his shaggy brows.) "Any of those absentees come in?" "Three of them, sir. Said the foot-bridge over the creek was down and they had to go up to get across." "What's the matter with the ford out yonder?" "Waist-deep, sir. Creek's risen two feet since sun- down." The colonel reflected a moment. "Very good. That's all," said he suddenly, and the relief went on its dripping way. "Queer," he continued, as he slowly rejoined his vis- itors. "It hasn't rained so very hard hereabouts." "Probably been pouring hard in the hills to the south," said Cutler. "As I was saying, there may be division of sentiment here in Kentucky, but not so in Virginia, Wherever you find a Virginian, he's for Virginia against all creation, North or South, and so ' "How about Scott?" asked Rolfe testily. "Not only stood fast himself, but did his best to hold Lee and others we wot of." "And couldn't hold 'em," continued Cutler imperturb- ably, with a heave of his shoulder an invertebrate shrug of the system that left him all in a bunch in the canvas chair all but the long bony hands and tip-touching fin- gers, still downward-pointing all but the big eyes, once again focused upon them. "As for Scott, he's too old now to start afresh. Had he been young as Lee, or any of 'em, you might have heard a different story." "Then," said Rolfe, his nervous hands twitching on The Rock of Chickamauga. the arms of his camp-chair, whirling full upon his can- tankerous guest, his pipe dropping unheeded to the ground, "how do you account for Thomas?" The shaggy eyebrows arched of a sudden like the back of a startled cat. The big pop-eyes dilated, but never swerved from the scrutiny of the extended finger-tips. The smooth-shaven face, conspicuous in days when all men who could wore beards, was inscrutable as ever, but the answer came with exaggerated calm : "Thom-as is as yet unaccountable. The exception proves the rule." "Oh, look here, Cutler," broke in Rolfe disgustedly. "You and he were long in the same regiment, and you never knew a squarer man. He'd quit it for the cavalry by the time I'd joined, but he taught us tactics and trot at the Point. Whatever he did and wherever he served he left his mark behind him." "That isn't the point," responded Cutler, his long legs extending now and the middle finger leveled at the dis- tant boot-toe. One eye was sighting over the tip-touch- ing indexes, training an imaginary six-pounder on the unoffensive toes. "We hadn't any black sheep in the Third, worth mentioning, but Bragg was his captain at Buena Vista, and what's Bragg doing now? Then they took Thomas from us, promoted him into the new cav- alry regiment, 'the pick of the army,' they called it. Whose pick? Jefferson Davis's. And whom did he pick? For colonel, Albert Sidney Johnston, of Texas, now commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army in the West ; for lieutenant-colonel, Robert E. Lee, of Virginia, The Rock of Chickamauga. 31 now commander-in-chief of Virginia's forces in the East ; for majors, William J. Hardee, of Georgia, now major- general of the Confederate forces in the South, and Bragg, of North Carolina, another major-general, and as Bragg didn't want it, and named his own first lieutenant in the old battery, they gave it to him George Henry Thomas, of Virginia, now what? a mere brigadier- general of volunteers, commanding a pitiful little bunch of raw recruits somewhere out here to the front of us. Who are his people ? Virginians. Who were his backers when they made him a major? Jeff Davis, John B. Floyd, Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg. Who were his friends and associates? Johnston, Lee, Bragg, Hardee, Van Dorn, Stuart, Hood, 'Shanks' Evans all of them gen- erals in high command, some right here in our front. And what have Lincoln and Stanton given Thomas for turn- ing his back, a-ap-par-ent-ly, on his family, his friends, his State, and sticking up for the old flag? Men years his junior, some of 'em, are heading big divisions or something higher, in front of Washington McClellan, Fitz John Porter, Charles P. Stone, 'Baldy' Smith but look at Thomas, leading a measly lot of home guards and hoosiers, with promise only of a regiment or two like this ! What does it mean, Rolfe ? I'm not saying in so many words, but draw your own conclusions." "I have drawn," said Rolfe ; "drew 'em first time I ever drew sword in command of this regiment. It's a time when too many men are trying to pull some other men down." Then: "What is it?" he asked sharply, whirl- 31 The Rock of Chickamauga. ing again to the entrance in response to a glance of warn- ing in Cutler's dilated eyes. A cavalry trooper, escorted by a corporal of the guard, had dismounted in front, and now appeared underneath the fly, the water dripping from his cap and poncho. "A despatch for the colonel," he said, and held forth a flat parcel wrapped in oilskin. "I was told to inquire for him on the way at the Morgan place, and then I got swamped trying to cross " "Inquire for me at the Morgans'?" demanded Rolfe in surprise, for now the pop-eyes had quit their scrutiny of the finger-tips; the shrewd face, with up-arched eye- brows, had tilted to the pose of a listening bird. "No, sir ; the lieutenant him that this is about." But Rolfe had torn open the packet and was hur- riedly reading: Somerset, Kentucky, December , 1861. Commanding Officer, th Illinois Infantry Volunteers, Camp Near Crab Orchard. SIR : The enclosed note addressed to an officer of your command was found, with certain others, in the posses- sion of a civilian caught by our pickets while attempting to ride through from the direction of Mill Springs. The bearer and his letters were examined by General Thomas himself, who was reconnoitering from Columbia. General Thomas directs that the note be delivered as addressed, and that Lieutenant Freeman be ordered to report to him in person at Liberty and without delay. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. J. HOSKINS, Colonel Commanding Brigade. Rolfe read with clouded eyes and wrinkling brow, Cut- The Rock of Chickamauga. 33 ler noting every symptom, Krwin sitting silent and ob- servant. A second time the colonel read his letter, a second time studied the superscription of the enclosure and turned it over to look at the back. It had obviously been opened, then ostentatiously sealed a dark-red blotch of official wax sprawled in the middle of the dingy white then stamped with an unfamiliar device. Slowly the coloi*u set it down upon the camp-table. "Do you mean you were told to give this letter to Lieutenant Freeman if you found him at the Morgan place ?" asked Rolfe, with trouble in his eyes. "No, sir; this." And, fumbling in the breast of his cavalry jacket, the orderly fished out another packet, smaller. "The lieuten- ant wasn't there. They said he'd left there soon after dark and I'd find him here at camp." And, being wet, weary, and hungry, after a long, hard ride, the trooper held forth the second missive, glad to get it off his hands. Rolfe took it, studied it gingerly a moment, and laid it beside the other. "The lieutenant is not in yet," said he. "I'll receipt to you for these, and then the corporal will show you where to put up your horse, and get hot coffee and something to eat," and while Rolfe was scrawling with pencil on the face of the official envelope Cutler calmly stretched forth his hand, took the two letters, gazed curiously at the address of the first, then turned as curiously to the other, just as Rolfe, the courier dismissed and sent re- 34 The Rock of Chickamauga. joicefully on his way, turned again, faced his inquisitor guest, saw what he was doing, and flushed indignantly. The first note had fallen from the long, bony fingers upon the long, lean thigh. It was the second at which, with compressed lips and much dilated eyes, the stafT- offker was staring. "H'm," said he, as he glanced at the angering eyes above him. "H'm ! Thomas's own writing !" CHAPTER III. The creek had risen another foot by ten o'clock and was lapping over its banks by twelve, as the now un- necessary sentries on the westward side of camp were speedily ready to testify. First one, then another, set up a shout for the corporal of the guard, and they were successively found by that functionary shin-deep in water. "Looks like a case of drown or desert post," said Number Twelve, as the lantern of the lieutenant commanding the guard threw its beams over a dark and swirling sheet of rain-pelted, bubble-covered branch water. " 'Nless this peters out quicker'n it looks to, the cook fires'll go next, an' the hull damn regiment'll have to swim for shore," was his further comment, winding up with, "You can see that even in the dark." Rolfe came wading down in raincoat and rubber boots soon after midnight, for the patter of the rain on the can- vas had long since increased to a steady roar, and Rolfe found the flood eating its way into the "bench" on which was pitched his camp. Out in midstream, visible now in the light of big fires built along the crumbling bank, logs, beams, planks, and rubbish of every description were sailing and tossing swiftly northward to swell the flood of the usually serene Kentucky. It looked as though every bridge for miles had gone out with the torrent, and as though the camp might speedily follow. Already the quartermaster and his teams had hauled out all the regi- 36 The Rock of Chickamauga. mental luggage, rations, stores, and firewood on the lower level, and stood ready to save all possible tentage should the rain continue. The rain had decreased in vol- ume, but was still dripping steadily. Half the regi- ment was up and out, swarming in bedraggled blue over- coats along the brink, heaping wood upon their fires and abuse upon the weather, and from one of the group, along toward one o'clock, came the startling cry: "By God! there's a boat and a girl !" Something like a skiff had gone flashing by, with some- thing in white, waving distracted and despairing signal from its stern, and there was a rush on the part of a score of men for the sentry-line at the north of camp. Rolfe turned to his adjutant, standing silently by. "There's just one thing to have caused this flood," said he. "There's a jam of rubbish and timber somewhere within a mile or so, probably about the Bonner Bridge. That will stop the skiff, and then we can get at the at whoever is in it. Mr. Byers," he called to the officer of the guard, "take half a dozen men and go down along the bank and listen for hails. It'll be slack water, and that boat will bring up somewhere. Yes, yes, you may go, too, if you like." This, half-pleased, half-provoked, to the eager, boyish appeals of several young soldiers. "Take lanterns and ropes and anything else you think of. I'll follow presently." "Will the colonel have his horse, sir?" asked an older soldier, his hand at the vizor. Rolfe turned quickly and stared at him. "Hello! Where have you served?" he asked, for only the veteran The Rock of Chickamauga. 37 regular used the third person in addressing his officer. The soldier stammered. "It's all new to me, sir," he said. "I heard some of the battery boys speaking that way and they told me." f Rolfe, by the gleam of the adjutant's lantern, looked the speaker keenly over. He stood nearly six feet in his stockings, was thin, wiry, and surely over forty; the grizzly stubble on his chin, and the lines in his foxlike face proclaimed the fact. He had dropped the hands, had even allowed them to clasp in front, had relaxed to sud- den slouch, from the precise and soldierly attitude Un- consciously assumed when first he addressed the regi- mental commander, and Rolfe saw through the artifice at a glance. It was an obvious case of old soldier playing new. "Stand 'tention!" came the sudden order, in the drill- sergeant tones of the old service, and in an instant, the habit of years proving stronger than the device of the moment, the soldier's heels snapped together in the wet grass, the lean, sinewy body straightened up from the knees, and, with head erect and eyes to the front, the recruit veteran fell into the trap. "Very new, I should say," said the colonel grimly. "And what name did you bear in the regulars ? That will do, you others," he continued, as in moist but mirthful en- joyment of the episode, a dozen young soldiers crowded about. "Go to your companies now. You may be needed to strike tents any moment." Then as they slowly shuf- fled away, disappointed, he turned again to the soldier before him. "What name did you say?" 3 8 The Rock ot Chickamauga. "My name's O'Reilly, sir." "What company?" " 'C/ sir ; Captain Manning." "And you have never served before, at least by that name?" The soldier gulped at something in his throat, but stood his ground. "There's lots of old soldiers where I come from, sir. That's how I learned " "Learned what?" asked Rolfe, remorseless. "How to how to speak to the colonel." "You're an apt pupil, O'Reilly. H^ow is it you're not wearing chevrons?" "Re juiced, sir, be order of Colonel Parton, on com- plaint of Loot'nant Freeman." "When was that?" "The week before Colonel Rolfe arrived and took over command," and now the pose was precision itself, dis- guise being of no avail. "Had you been drinking, O'Reilly?" "I had not, sir," and the emphasis on the I was sig- nificant. "Lieutenant Freeman, I should judge, had been much liked by the men," said the colonel quietly. "It would surprise me to hear that he had been unjust." "There was none liked him more'n I did, sir. 'Twas because of me likin' I didn't wish to see the loot'nant goin' wrong." There were still, by dozens, large numbers of the men grouped along the water's brink, barely twenty paces distant. The bonfires were yet brightly burning. The The Rock of Chickamauga. 39 rain had slackened still more and subsided to a sullen drizzle. Far down the valley toward the north there was a sound as of rushing waters, and the faint glimmer of lanterns could be made out every now and then, twinkling through the darkness along the invisible shore. Away to the southward, where, early in the evening, the bright lights beamed from that distant homestead on the hill, the watchers were again alert, for again the lights were gleaming, and the household obviously awake. Over along the opposite bank, full two hundred yards dis- tant, the night wind was stirring the dead leaves in the timber, and swaying the desolate boughs. Overhead the clouds were breaking, and, at one point, a single star peeped mistily a moment through a rent, then was sud- denly shut from view. It was time to follow the would-be rescuers, and yet Rolfe stood here, studying this new link in the chain of testimony concerning this happy-go- lucky subaltern of his. He shrank from bidding a private to speak against his officer, yet there were reasons why he, as regimental commander, should know the facts. It was better for all persons concerned that he should gather them than that they should be told to far less sym- pathetic ears. There was Cutler, for instance. Rolfe thanked his invisible stars that both his guests preferred the refuge of their snug tent and cots and blankets to the possible happenings in the storm-swept camp. He had had a tiff with Cutler, resulting from Cutler's curiosity about those two letters, and his very significant announce- ment as to the superscription of the second. Cutler had gone so far as to intimate that a letter from questionable 4O The Rock of Chickamauga. sources should not be allowed to pass, unexamined, to a questionable character, and when Rolfe hotly demanded whether Cutler meant to refer to the second missive, ad- dressed, as declared, by General Thomas himself, the enigmatical major had pursed up his lips, and rolled his eyes, and propped his finger-tips, and slowly said : "The letter of which I spoke was that admittedly received from the Southern lines. These days, when this whole State is half-rebel, the government needs to know just whom it can, and whom it cannot, trust, whether they wear chemises or shoulder-straps." "You don't mean that I should hold, or examine, let- ters that come from my superior officer ?" demanded Rolfe. "Perhaps not that," said Cutler, still studying his finger- tips. "But, duly accredited officers of the general com- manding being here, the superior of your superior, it might be well that they should be able to explain to him what seems to them at present a mystery. We mustn't be too squeamish in war, Rolfe, especially a war like this, when the devil himself seems siding with the South. Of- ficers who have reason to suspect treason in their ranks should leave no stone unturned to root it out. Officers who neglect their opportunities," and the big eyes rolled to the letter on the table, "are likely to be classed with those whom they shield." And Rolfe's answer had been, after one moment's scru- tiny of the other's impassive face, to snatch up the letters and thrust them in an inside pocket. And there they were now, as he stood here questioning this wily veteran. He could feel them crackling against The Rock of Chickamauga. 41 his strong young heart as it throbbed beneath the blue. He was again facing the soldier, his adjutant still stand- ing by, and he hesitated ; he hated to ask the question fal- tering on his lips, but at last it came : "Do you mean that Lieutenant Freeman was doing anything that you, as an old soldier, knew to be wrong ?" For a moment, no answer. "You hear me, I think, O'Reilly," persisted Rolfe, after a moment's waiting, and then, as the soldier was still silent, in spite of a warning hand laid suddenly, lightly on his arm, Rolfe repeated his words ; this time with re- sult: "I'd rather the colonel asked that of the loot'nant him- self." When Rolfe, observant at last of the pressure on his wrist, turned for explanation to the adjutant, he saw be- side him another muffled form, with the keen eyes of Major Cutler peering out from underneath the brim of his black felt hat. "That will do, O'Reilly," said the colonel curtly, and the soldier, saluting, turned instantly away. "A'h, h'm," said Cutler, the fingers thrusting forth from beneath the long overcoat-sleeves, the big eyes pro- truding, rolling downward until focused on a puddle at his feet. "Young Hopeful again the subject of discus- sion, I suppose. Rolfe, you'll have to look into this case, or I'll have to do it for you." "I'd like to know, Major Cutler, what possible right you have to dictate my action in the matter," 42 The Rock of Chickamauga. "We-11, not as you express it, perhaps," was the calm response ; "yet, in a measure, I am answerable for you as a sort of military sponsor in baptism. My recommen- dation made you colonel of the th Illinois, and I should like to see that you don't discredit it." Rolfe turned again disgustedly. Then the rumor that had reached his ears and disquieted his soul was true. He owed his unlooked-for promotion and opportunity to this man, whom he so disliked. For one moment he knew not how to answer. Then came blessed relief. From far down-stream a shout, and then another. "A stretcher!" "They want a stretcher from the hospital!" and all three, now, the officers hastened toward the north flank and across the unnoted sentry-post, and a muddy country road leading down to the now impassable ford. Beyond was another open field, its fence-rails recent sac- rifice before the altar of the gods of war, and, beyond that, the lanterns were swinging back along the brink of the now receding waters. Almost as quickly as it had risen, the west fork was slipping away through its self- made sluice-gates, leaving above the tangled maze of flot- sam and jetsam the few human victims of its midnight attack upon the alien camp a man, a youth, and a girl. The man had been struck in the head and half- drowned. For him they needed a stretcher. The girl they had bundled in overcoats, and, taking turns, the hardy sons of Illinois were cats-cradling her swiftly campward, with the youth striding, laughing, alongside- laughing in spite of chattering teeth and water-soaked and bedraggled clothing, recognizable in spite "of their The Rock of Criickamauga. 43 condition as the uniform of a first lieutenant of United States infantry. "For the love of the Lord," said the adjutant, "if here isn't Freeman !" And Freeman it was. He greeted his colonel with punctilious salute, but with it a burst of irrepressible mirth. "You always did say, colonel, that I'd come to grief somehow, and here I am. Drowned rats aren't a circumstance. Never mind me, sir. I'll be all right with a drink of whisky and dry clothes. Just let doc look after this young lady, will you, please? It's Miss Kittie Claiborne, and her father, sir, lives a mile up yonder, and they were trying to get me across. Creek had risen so high he butted a bough with his head and got swept overboard. We had the devil's own time getting him back into the skiff; lost our sculls and got swept away till we finally fetched up in the ruck below here. Never was so glad to see camp in my life. Thought we never could make you see us !" And so he rattled on, as, all together now, they went striding back to camp, one doctor having hurried on to the aid of the injured man, the other assisting the girl. The hospital-tent was not far. Thither they bore her at once, blue from cold, shivering and well-nigh exhausted, yet consumed with anxiety about her father. The hos- pital matron and the wife of the steward had been roused and were ready to greet and minister to her. The tent- flaps fell behind them as they bore her to the matron's bed. Then the chattering crowd turned back to meet the injured man, now feebly rallying under swift repe- tition of native stimulant. Then others still, captains and 44 The Rock of Chickamauga. subalterns, gathered about Freeman's tent, plying him with whisky and questions. He was standing in a half- barrel of hot water, rubbing his firm young flesh into a glow with the roughest of towels, and shouting his an- swers to those without, and telling his tale to the cronies within, the canvas, reckless of disaster by flood or field, laughing it off as the lightest of mishaps, thinking naught of himself, as it would seem, and much of his would-be helpers to whom, on his account, had come such dire misfortune when a silence fell on the fast-diminishing party without. Then the colonel's voice was heard: "Getting on all right, Mr. Freeman?" "All right, sir ! All right, colonel ! Be in dry clothes in ten minutes. Got a long explanation to write this time, sir," he continued, thinking whimsically of the many he had had to write in cadet days because of "Ruddy" Rolfe's reports. "Time enough for that later," was the kindly answer. "Get dry and warm and to bed now. Your elderly friend's all right; merely stunned, says the doctor, but he'd have drowned if you hadn't saved him, says the daughter. Mr. Allis has some letters for you to sleep on to-night and act on to-morrow. Good night, Freeman! Good night, gentlemen!" And the invisible colonel was heard going, whistling, away. "Isn't he a trump?" panted Freeman. "Never once asked where I'd been or what I'd been doing. Gimme those flannels, Peck, old boy, and another swig of the whisky. Help yourself, you fellows. That's some of old Colonel Morgan's priceless Bourbon. Yes, come in, The Rock of Chickamauga. 45 Allis. Just fill up there, will you ! Wait till I get out o' this !" Three minutes more and, glowing, he had thrust his feet into warm woolen socks and his long legs into uni- form trousers, and by the light of the swinging lantern had opened and read the first, an official missive, his big, blue eyes dilating with surprise, then clouding with con- cern. "Will you listen to this?" he cried, impulsively, never noting the enclosure that had fallen to his feet. Headquarters th Illinois Infantry Volunteers, Camp Near Crab Orchard, Kentucky, December th, 1861. Special Orders No. 147. Pursuant to instructions received from the colonel commanding the th Brigade, First Lieutenant Edgar C. Freeman is relieved from duty with Company "C," and will proceed without unnecessary delay to Liberty, Kentucky, and report in person to Brigadier-general George H. Thomas, U. S. V. By order of COLONEL ROLFE. R. M. Allis, Lieutenant and Adjutant - th Illinois Volunteers. "Now, what the devil does that mean, Allis ?" The adjutant stood just within the door of the tent, his face as sphinxlike as he knew how to make it, Rolfe having told him the model adjutant should never discuss the commander's orders. "You know as much as I," was the blunt answer. "The general hasn't seen fit to explain matters to me" Down in the depths of his soul Mr. Allis was in hopes that the general meant that Freeman should explain matters to 46 The Rock of Chickamauga. him, and that the letters yet unopened might tell why. In this expectation he waited. Some one had picked up the note at Freeman's feet and now held it forth to him. The laughter had gone from the young officer's lips. His face had changed. He gave one glance at the superscrip- tion as he took the note in his hand. A sudden light shone in his blue eyes. A sudden color sprang to his cheeks. Impulsively he started to break the seal, then slowly ceased and looked at the silent faces about him. One man quickly rose from his seat on the camp-cot. "Well, if there's anything you need, Freeman, let a fellow know. I'll say good night. Come on, Pete," and with this hint to others he started for the open tent door. "Have another nip before you go, Fletcher? No? Nor any of you?" suggested Freeman, with reviving presence of mind. "Well, I've got to pull on my think- ing-cap and get what sleep I can." So, reluctantly, an- other followed, and left only three Freeman, Rawson, his second lieutenant and tentmate, and Allis. It was the last named who spoke : "You haven't opened your other letter yet." But Al- lis concluded it useless to stay when Freeman promptly and pointedly answered: "No, Allis, and I'm not going to till I read this one first, and it looks like a long one." / CHAPTER IV. The storm had gone. The floods had subsided. The sun was breaking through the low-hanging, fleecy clouds at the east, and peering inquisitively into the drenched and dripping valley as though it, too, had something on its mind, something to investigate, and a report to make to superior authority. The inquisitive sun and the visit- ing major were up together, and while the former held to its accustomed "right line" the latter was making the rounds. It was after time for reveille, and reveille had not sounded, and Rolfe had so ordered before finally turn- ing in for the night, without so much as referring the matter to Cutler, and Cutler loved to be referred to, still more to be deferred to, and in Rolfe he had found neither reference nor deference, but, instead, a vexatious and in- dependent spirit. There are some men, there are per- haps as many women, to whom the contemplation of the harmonious and well-ordered movement of the universe is in some measure a sore trial ; they would be glad to in- ject a comet or two if only to stir things. Cutler could never hear a letter read, an order prepared, a resolution adopted, without a hankering to amend it somehow. And now he was up and astir with the sun, standing astraddle in front of his sleeping-quarters for the night a spare tent pitched by that of the colonel with his hands deep in his big overcoat pockets, and his head in the heart of a plot. Half the night he had been prodding his brain for 48 The Rock of Chickamauga. some explanation of this connection of Freeman with the unknown correspondent beyond the lines, and Thomas's possible connection with both, and the connection of both Thomas and Freeman with these transplanted Virginians at the homestead on the distant hill. He was itching to be up and doing, finding out something. He wished to see the trooper who brought the letters, and to ask who told him to first inquire for the lieutenant at the Morgans'. He wished to see the soldier who was in conversation with the colonel, and to ask him what it was that Lieu- tenant Freeman had said or done that he shouldn't have said or done. He wished to make the acquaintance of Freeman himself, to find out what Thomas had written and what that other letter was about, or else find that Freeman wouldn't tell him, in which event his suspicions would be verified. He wanted to interview the elderly boatman who had risked so much trying to bring Free- man in from the wet and out of trouble. He wanted to "interview" the young girl, his daughter, she who had told what Freeman had not that the young officer nearly drowned himself in the struggle to save her drowning father. Barely a month had the regiment camped there- abouts, and this high-mettled young fellow had scraped acquaintance with the whole county. All this and more had Cutler in mind as once again he tugged at his fob and consulted his watch. Almost seven, and the regiment still sleeping in unsoldierly sloth and idleness. "Let 'em sleep," Rolfe had said to the officer of the day. "Don't have reveille before seven. Give 'em all a chance to dry out under their blankets." The Rock of Chickamauga. 49 The guard and the cooks, the stablemen and orderlies, with a few early birds from each company, were appar- ently the only men astir, and many of these had gone down to the edge of the bank and were looking out over the oozy, mud-coated bed of last night' s flood. Some- thing in the midst of inaccessible rubbish had attracted attention. Cutler concluded he might as well look into that as remain here doing nothing, so thither he wended his way, and thereby missed a chance, yet found a clue. Not ten minutes had he been gone when, from the line of company officers' tents, a tall, young soldier appeared, coming straight for the spot so lately occupied by the major. It was Freeman, erect, alert, and presentable in spite of shabby attire. The handsome uniform worn the day before being practically ruined, he had donned his second-best frock coat, made for him six months earlier in Chicago, by an artist whose nearest approach to pre- vious acquaintance with the soldier garb of the day was the clerical coat of the church militant. In place of the heavy, dark-blue "cloak coat" then prescribed in regula- tions as the overcoat for all officers, he had obtained one of the cheap, coarse, light-blue, brass-buttoned affairs used by the rank and file. Top-boots and a slouch hat completed his attire, so far as visible, and even Freeman, a dandy from boyhood, could not look happy in such motley as that. The flaps of the marquee were down, but he listened at the narrow opening ; called in low tone, "Colonel Colonel Rolfe!" and then, after a moment's irresolute pause, strode away toward the tent of the ad- jutant, an official-sized letter in his hand. 50 The Rock of Chickamauga. No ceremony attended his arrival here. "Up, Allis?" he cried. "If not, it's time you were. Here's my explanation for the colonel, and I'm off in ten minutes." A sleepy yawn and a disgusted sniff were for a mo- ment the only reply. "Here you are," continued the un- welcome visitor, thrusting letter and arm within; then, turning, was stalking away when Allis hailed: "Oh, Freeman ? Hello ! How you going ? Had break- fast?" "All I want here," was the blunt answer, indicative of prospective feasting en route. "Got Butler's horse first half of the way." "But you don't know the way," persisted Allis, up now and showing a tousled head from the canvas. "The orderly does the man who brought it. He goes back with me. Good luck good-by." And then, half- unwillingly, Freeman turned again and held forth his hand. He and Allis, somehow, had never been congenial. Perhaps it was his own fault ; but the fact was the same. Allis took it and held on. He had more to ask : "Why, what's your hurry? Why not wait till the roads dry?" "Roads are all right enough once you get out of this mudhole. Good-by again. Say good-by to the crowd. I suppose we'll all be together again in a day or two." "Well don't you know anything ? Can't you tell what it's for now?" "No more than you can, Allis. Take care of yourself, and give my love to the colonel ;" and with that Freeman The Rock of Chickamauga. was gone, the adjutant watching his buoyant stride in obvious perplexity, not unmixed with disappointment. Freeman was going with evident relish. Reprimand was the least thing Allis thought in store for him, and Free- man looked as though it were the last. General Thomas's letter could not have contained a word of rebuke. What, then, did it contain ? And then finally came reveille, and then the belated breakfast of the field and staff, and then inquiries for Major Cutler, unaccountably absent. His tent was empty. He had not been seen since the arrival of the colonel's orderly before the drum-beat. "Go look for the major and tell him breakfast is getting cold," briefly said the colonel. He was thinking intently of the rather long communication he had just read, and had locked in a despatch-box, a very frank explanation on part of Lieu- tenant Freeman of his military misdemeanor of the pre- vious day. Even when all had finished breakfast Cutler was still missing, but the orderly came. "The major's compliments, and he'd had coffee with Company 'C and didn't need breakfast. He'd be back presently." "Where'd you find him?" asked the colonel. "Down below the next field, sir. They'd found Lieu- tenant Freeman's overcoat lodged in some willows and were fetching it back." But it was nearly an hour before Cutler came saunter- ing up the grassy slope, hands in his pockets as before, and hat on the back of his head. His eyes seemed bigger than ever, and his mood as absorbed. No, he needed no 52 Jhe Rock of Chickamauga. breakfast wasn't much of a feeder at any time. No, he thought he'd write a bit if Rolfe wasn't going to use his desk. So Rolfe went off to look to the drying-out of his regiment, and inspect losses and damages, fortunately slight, an4 not until noon did he see Cutler again. By that time the sun ha4 been shining in unclouded splen- dor four brilliant hours. The canvas was turned white again. The elderly patient, Freeman's friend of the night Before, a farmer in a small way, it seems, had been driven home in the yellow ambulance, his gentle daughter in at- tendance, escorted by the junior surgeon of the regiment ancj three or four neighbors who had come saddleback, a.fter the gqq4 old Kentucky fashion, to aid him. Rolfe had been to express his thanks for their effort to be of s_eryice to his officer, and to say that Mr. Freeman had written, charging him to thank them again and to see that every loss and damage was settled for. Moreover, Freeman had written to his colonel still more concerning the Claibornes. It was raining, Freeman said, when he reached their modest hqrne toward half-past eight. He had been Q the JVforgans' on the hill, having crossed the fork at the stepping-stones a mile above camp when going thither before dark, and was surprised to find them under water on his return. Mr. Claiborne said it must have been raining pitchforks in the hills to set the fork in such a flood, but, opposite the farmhouse was a broad, shallow, and usually quiet pool the duck-pond and water- ing-place and Claiborne had thought to paddle across without trouble. Kate, his brave daughter, had insisted on going, too, to help him back. They pushed out from The Rock of Chfckamauga. 53 the bank, little dreamitig of the strength of the current, and were swept like a cockle-shell into some brushwood a hundred yards below, where they were held fast, helpless, unable to go in any direction, and there, furiously pelted by the storm, they lay exposed until the rising flood finally tore away brushwood and all. Then down they whirled with the torrent until Claiborne was knocked overboard, and Freeman, with the boat's painter in one hand, had plunged after and finally got him again aboard, and the colonel knew the rest. Freeman had earlier taken off his overcoat to wrap around the girl, and in the strug- gle to save the father that had disappeared. Freeman hoped it might be found, and had left word with Raw- son, his tentmate, what to do with the contents of the pockets. And Rawson, his tentmate, had come to see the colonel just as the drums and fifes Were proclaiming the dinner hour with the jovial strains of "Roa'st Beef of Old Eng- land," just as the colonel himself, with the ever faithful Allis, came trotting up from a visit to the guard, after an hour's exploration of the valley, and Cutler, still seated at the colonel's desk engrossed in his writing, lifted up the clean-shaven face and listened a minute, then drove on with his accustomed quill. "The steel pen," said Cutler, "deserves its name." "I found some of the things that should be in the pockets, colonel," said Rawson, "but there was a little bunch of letters mentioned and a flat memorandum-book that I can't find anywhere/' "Sorry, Mr. Rawson/' said the colonel briefly, "but 54 The Rock of Chickamauga. I'm glad the valuables are safe. The others are probably a foot deep in mud." Rawson hesitated a moment ; glanced irresolutely at the major, seated absorbed in thought within the battered canvas of the marquee ; finally answered, "I'm sorry, too, sir," and turned away. "Rolfe," said Cutler presently, "I've ordered my horse for one o'clock, and am going out for a ride. My or- derly is a stupid sort of an ass, and if you don't mind I'll take that man O'Reilly, is it? with me." The young colonel had just dismounted, and was rue- fully contemplating his mud-bespattered high boots, while the adjutant, the orderly, and the colonel's big chestnut sorrel ("a match for his hair," said the regiment) went rejoicefully on their way to dinner. For a moment Rolfe did not look up. Something in the proposition struck him unfavorably, yet he could neither name it, nor, with- out reason, could he well refuse. "You are welcome to any man you need, Major Cut- ler," said he finally. He was still chafing over the thought that it was to Cutler in great measure he was indebted for his colonelcy "but how far were you going?" "Oh, up and down and around ; just exploring." "Were you thinking of exploring at the Morgans' ?" "Well, possibly," and Cutler's face put on its favorite guise of inscrutable mystery and all-comprehending wis- dom. "Well, you'll miss them. I had the pleasure of riding a mile with the old gentleman, his wife, and their very The Rock of Chickamauga. 55 pretty daughter this morning on their way over to Lib- erty, and Freeman escorts them the rest of the way." "H'm," said Cutler, with a roll of his eyes that fixed finally on his boot-toes. "I might have foreseen that. Thomas is there." CHAPTER V. The floods of heaven seemed to have washed the skies, for the December sunshine beamed in cloudless radiance over hill and vale. Even the zigzag country roads were passable by afternoon, and, except in the deep valley of the west fork, where the torrent had torn the low banks and its bordering farm and pasture-lands, rural Kentucky was looking bright as a button, and buttons were bright and many, as a little party of travelers drove in sight of the scattered hamlet of Liberty. Out in the one level field near the Columbia Road an ambitious young captain had started a riding-school a rare thing in those days and that section of these United States, where people seemed to imbibe the principles of horsemanship with the mother's milk. It was this fact perhaps that made the exhibition of a luckless dozen the more conspicuous. In the center of the field sat the ringmaster ; "a centaur of attraction," said the elderly gentleman in a mud-bespattered carry- all, drawn up by the fence; whereat there was a fond smile in the sweet, care-worn face beside him, and the merriment and mischief deepened in the fair young face on the seat in the rear, and a tall officer in saddle smiled appreciatively as he rejoined, "They tell me Sam Weth- erby was born straddle-legged." Around this center re- volved the recruits, each astride an active and deeply in- terested native to the soil, and eight out of the twelve as utterly uncomfortable as their chargers' antics or their The Rock of Chickamauga. 57 comrades' remarks could possibly make them. Captain Sam Wetherby, a gentleman born, as Freeman put it, to the saddle, had lately received a draft of recruits for his troop of the Wolford Cavalry. The bulk of his men were born in the blue grass counties and bred to that line of business. The band of recruits had been sent him from Louisville and "must have learned ridin' on the river," as the first sergeant said. The tents of the troop were pitched on the slope to the north of the road, but two-thirds of the troop were perched on the fence to the north and east of it, cheerfully seconding with unsought suggestion the motions of the mounts and the comments of Captain Sam, which latter were caustic. It is not in the make-up of the average Westerner, when in pursuit of pleasure to abandon a fine point of view in favor of others. Altruism with him takes on an altogether different form, and it was not the fact that an officer rode by the side of the carryall that prevailed in this case, but the face of the girl within it. Half a dozen laughing young sons of Kentucky had slid from their perch on the top rail, and sidled to the right or left in order that the occupants of the vehicle might have un- obstructed view, and, for the first time since the fun be- gan, the show in the field was eclipsed by that at the fence. Men who had been content to sit and look on from the east end now found it expedient to move toward the western, beyond the wagon. "The sun was gittin* in my face," said Corporal Crow. "An' now it's the daugh- ter," grinned Trooper Todd, for she was certainly facing their way. 58 The Rock of Chickamauga. It was the prettiest face they had seen in six months, these saddle-bred sons of the blue grass ; there was none of their number to gainsay that. Cherry lips and soft- flushing cheeks and pearly teeth and sparkling eyes and a wealth of hair of the real Titian golden red rare color in Kentucky, but this, as Colonel Morgan proudly explained, was a Virginia product. "Almost the color of the sacred soil 'long the Rivanna, suh." Moreover, this was no pensive beauty, this maid of eighteen, but a joyous, healthful, mirthful, mischievous bit of feminine loveliness as blithe and buoyant as a summer breeze, and, as was speedily to be seen, as coquettish as a Dolly Var- den. The troop still kept up its fire of comment and sug- gestion, but their remarks were now directed less with a view of galling their natural prey, the recruits, than of diverting and impressing the girl. The birds of the air in their mating moments are no more given to "showing off" for the gentler sex than are the young cocks of the walk in the land of our birth, and some of the sallies made Miss Morgan shake with laughter, the more so as it speedily appeared that to the gallant in saddle beside her they did not seem witty at all. The troop had been under the spell of her beauty no more than ten minutes, but Ned Freeman had been spellbound the best of a month. It was easy to be seen that in even so brief a space of time Frances Morgan's eyes and ways had been playing havoc with the tall, young subaltern of the th Illinois. "Without delay," his orders had read, he was required to report in person to General Thomas at the county The Rock of Chickamauga. town of Liberty. It stood not thirty miles from the regimental camp on the fork, provided one could go di- rect, but might well seem farther over such roads and in such weather. Without unnecessary delay had he started on a quartermaster's horse and with Trooper Burns for a guide, but civility demanded a detour to the Morgan place, lest the old colonel and his good wife should be anxious concerning him, and there was he hos- pitably bidden to alight and breakfast, after the noble old Virginia way, and while there it transpired that the Morgans and the Thomases had been well known to each other, Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Thomas, the general's Huguenot mother, had been neighbors, and, despite dis- parity in years, devoted friends. They, too, had reason to be going that day to meet the general during this brief inspection of his line, and they were quite as well in- formed as Freeman as to the general's whereabouts. What more natural than that the young officer should be persuaded to stop an hour and then escort them, or that the hour given to preparation for the start should lengthen to two and a half? More reason than one had Freeman for chafing over the delay. It wasn't so bad while the elders were busy about the homestead. It was anything but good, however, when his dashing young colonel came riding up just as they finally cleared the gates and, being formally presented by the embarrassed subaltern, decided on riding alongside a rod or two, and the rods spread like the hour, for Fanny Morgan's lovely eyes made play from the start, and Fanny Morgan went into raptures over Colonel Morgan's spirited mount, 60 The Rock of Chickamauga. "Red Chief," so long as the colonel rode alongside, and over the colonel's soldierly form and bearing and riding as soon as he left. Poor Freeman, with all his hand- some face and slender figure, was but a novice in saddle, and his mount but a sorry specimen. Moreover, the colonel's uniform was spick and span, new and elegant, while' the lieutenant's was shabby. A thousand times that day the unhappy fellow wished he had put tempta- tion and "The Oaks" aside and ridden sturdily westward from the start. He might then have been at Liberty at early afternoon. Now it was nearly four. "The Knight of the Rueful Countenance," she had called him, and well he knew why. He had made up his mind to give her a piece of it before they parted, but opportunity seemed to be lacking. He had thought to display independence by saying adieu, right here and now, on the plea that he had lost much time already, and "General Thomas might be waiting," whereupon Miss Morgan had laughed the more merrily and said she "reckoned" General Thomas didn't wait much for anybody, a statement promptly cor- roborated by a Kentuckian only too glad of a chance to chime in, who said, "That's right, miss, and, what's more, the general ain't been waitin'. He's over yonder now on the Somerset Road, an' hasn't been in camp since early morning." So poor Freeman hung on and sat gloomily watching the unwilling circus in the field in front, with occasional glance at her mantling cheek (How rosy it looked over the fur boa in that eager December air!), and so was unaware of the next arrival^ or that there had been an- The Rock of Chickamauga. 61 qther arrival, until he noted a cessation in the fire of chaff about him, and the fact that a number of the men (not all, for we had not yet drilled the American into the ob- servances of the soldier) had slid down from the fence and that some of the number were uplifting hands in awkward but avowed salute. For, all unattended, another horseman had ridden into the field, and, seated in saddle barely a dozen yards away, and still behind the occupants of the carryall, was gravely, silently watching the performance. Freeman himself would not have noted but for the unusual demon- stration of respect. Now, for the moment forgetful of his fellow travelers, he gazed with all his eyes. A man of more than average stature was this who sat there in unconscious dignity, tall, strong, and heavily built. His chest and shoulders were massive. The poise of his head was firm and fine, and the sunny hair that curled crisply beneath the broad hat-brim, and the tawny, red- gold beard, not yet showing a strain of silver, gave a leonine coloring to the strongly leonine pose. Eyes of bluish-gray, large and full, peered from beneath the heavy thatch of his brows in a steadfast, unwinking, all com- prehending way that seemed to overlook nothing within range. The soft felt hat of black, with but a rusty cord, pulled down low over his brows, concealed a forehead broad and high. The features, except for a long, thin nose, were large; the chin especially being square and strong. He sat high in saddle because of his length of torso, but his seat was firm and easy. His powerful legs, cased in top-boots to the knees, hung close to the barrel 62 The Rock of Chickamauga. of his big-boned and strongly built charger a blooded bay. He was clad in the double-breasted frock of a field- officer of cavalry. Brigadier-general he had been since August, and not yet had he donned the garb of his rank. Shoulder-straps of faded yellow bore the eagle of his regular commission, that of colonel, which, to the sur- prise of many a soul at Washington and more to the South, he had not resigned as had his predecessor in that rank and station, Sidney Johnston, and his seniors in the regiment, Lee and Hardee. He had returned scrupu- lously and gravely the salutes tender2d him by certain of the troop; had ignored the fact that certain others, unac- customed from boyhood to any show of deference to any- body, had rendered no salute; and then became absorbed in the impromptu school before him. At his coming there was speedy end to the jibes of the lookers-on, a fact quickly noted by the occupants of the carryall, Miss Frances Morgan being the first to turn, and instead of finding Mr. Freeman's blue eyes fixed upon her in adoring, imploring appeal, lo! he had turned his back and was lost in contemplation of the new arrival in the field. Before she could find words to fittingly rebuke the defection of the younger officer her father had caught sight of the senior. A light of wel- come flashed over his care-worn face, and he was on the point of calling to his old-time neighbor when the latter gave rein to his steed and rode slowly toward the ring. Seeing this, the instructor ordered halt and dis- mount, most eagerly yet awkwardly obeyed, then "fox- trotted" out to meet his commander. The Rock of Chickamauga. 63 "Some greenhorns, general," he said, with a graceful inclination of the head and a deprecatory wave of the hand. "I've been trying to shake 'em down into some kind of a seat, but I reckon it will take from now till next grass to do it." The general allowed no symptom of disapprobation to escape him. Never demonstrative, never effusive, some- times so impassive as to seem unsympathetic, he was courtesy itself in his bearing to his juniors. He thought a moment before he spoke, and then spoke simply and kindly : "We made rather a study of that in my regiment. Some of the best young horsemen came to us each year from the Point; they all took a hand in training the re- cruits, and, after all, we came to the conclusion that the old way was the sure way. To give a young fellow a good seat and a little confidence, there's nothing better than the snaffle and the slow trot." "Reckon you may be right, general," answered the captain. "These curbs are rough in such hands, but they're all we got; all we could get, in fact." "True," said Thomas. "The new cavalry bridle has nothing but the curb, and many a mouth and temper is spoiled in consequence. It is easier to teach the seat than the hand. You notice how those horses were fret- ting. Now, my way would be to lead out with only watering bridle and blanket; no stirrups, no saddle, to start with; teach them to mount, then keep them at the jog-trot ten days or so till they grow to the horse. Do that, and," with a quiet glance around the deeply inter- 64 The Rock of Chickamauga. ested fringe of listeners, "limit the number, and the com- ments, of your spectators, and the result will surprise you. Try it a while, and tell me how you find it works.'* Then, before turning away, "And, captain, I shall need two patrols to-night. Pick your sergeants carefully. Good evening, sir." And so, alone and unattended, as he came, with not so much as an aide-de-camp, or even an orderly, the gen- eral commanding the newly organized division started at his accustomed gait, sober and slow, to ride from the field, and Captain Wetherby, with a touch of his cap- vizor, sat grinning after him. "Don't wonder they called him 'Old Slow Trot' in the cavalry," said he to the stripling lieutenant who had joined him. "Heard my cousin George Crittenden tell of him many a time. What is it? Who wants to see him? Well, run along, sonny, an' tell him. / got to send these hyuh fellows home!" And so the division commander, riding thoughtfully away toward a gap in the fence, found himself over- taken by a young Kentuckian afoot. ' 'Scuse me, gen- eral," said he, "but there's some folks over yahnduh would like mightily to speak to you a moment. Gentle- man's name is Morgan, suh." The lion face lighted with pleasure. "Which way?" was the question. "Thank you very much, sir." But even now the heavy horseman barely quickened the pace. He rode straight for the wagon, the silver-blue eyes kin- dling as he neared it and recognized the head of the little family. The Rock of Chickamauga. "Colonel Morgan, old friend ! I'm glad you came." He had ridden as close to the wagon as the fence would allow, and there thrust forth a gauntleted hand. But the distance was too great. In an instant half a dozen young fellows, roosting on the top rail as the general turned, then popping off like so many frogs at his nearer ap- proach, now dove under his horse's head, and in a twin- kling had demolished the obstacle. "Thank you, my lads," said the general gravely; then rode in close and, with eyes that softened inexpressibly, looked down into Mrs. Morgan's kindly, smiling face. "You've come all this way to talk about Donald," said he, "and I should have gone to you." He had leaned forward now over the arching neck, and both his hands were clasped in those of his visitors ; ancj Freeman, silently observant, could not but see that in this meeting of old friends there was something of emotion that none of them could entirely master. The mother's eyes had welled up with sudden tears. "I knew where to find you," continued Thomas. "I had hoped to ride over this week; but here you are, and this," he added kindly, "this is little Fan, who used to 'ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross/ " and a hand went out to the girl on the back seat, and the kindly eyes studied her sweet face with instant appreciation. "We'll move right on to my camp, good people, if you please, for we've all been afield since morning, and I, at least, am hungry." It was the girl who now, in one quick glance, directed his attention to the fourth member of the party, the tall, 66 The Rock of Chickamauga. young officer in saddle. "And this?" continued the gen- eral, with interrogative glance. "Lieutenant Freeman, sir," was the answer, with a stiffening of back and straightening up to the salute. "I ventured to wait and escort the colonel over, general. Perhaps I'm a little late." Indeed, Freeman did not quite know what might be uppermost in the general's mind as to the manifold misdoings of which he was conscious. Only he did hate to appear at disadvantage at such a time. It was just his "d adjective luck" to be in shabby regimentals and on a shabby mount. It was more than likely the general would never know he had a better uniform, only that he'd spoiled it diving for his ferryman. Confound the luck, anyhow, he was born to it! And with Fanny Morgan to hear him get his probable raking-over ! But this was the raking-over that presently came. With friendly interest the general had been studying the clouded young face, and, disengaging his horse from the wheels, he reined him over and held forth a cordial hand. "I should have known you at once, my boy," said he. "You have your mother's eyes, and you come just in time. You haven't forgotten your French, have you?" CHAPTER VI. Miss Morgan's fair face turned suddenly white. Then a wave of color swept to her temples. The aging gen- tlewoman, her mother, who had beamed when the gen- eral spoke of Donald, glanced over her shoulder quickly, almost furtively. Between the two, mother and daugh- ter, there passed a swift glance of apprehension. Then Mrs. Morgan's eyes, noting that surprising access of color, began to dilate. That her daughter should lose color at the general's words was unavoidable. That she should be blushing like the rose was unaccountable, in- deed reprehensible. There was time for no investigation. The general, with Freeman on his left, an odd contrast in both men and mounts, turned his horse's head to the west, and saying, "Now, you're all coming over to camp," led the way in his grave and decorous fashion, leaving the Morgans to follow. It was evident that he desired to speak one moment with the young officer, for he leaned over toward and turned his massive head full upon him. As for Freeman, for the first time since she had known that young officer, Miss Morgan saw him obviously ab- sorbed in some one else, which was productive of a sensation distinctly new and by no means acceptable. It was not a conversation they were holding. The general very urgently was speaking, the lieutenant as earnestly was listening. Then they saw Freeman's hand go up to the cap-vizor in salute. Then the general reined back 68 The Rock of Chickamauga. beside the front wheels on the driver's side, and, pres- ently, with a very far-away look in his eyes, a look in which relief and rejoicing both were blended, Mr. Free- man once more took his station near Miss Morgan's seat. Between the girl and her mother not a word had passed, though an observer would have said one thought was up- permost in the minds of each. Now, father and mother both, as the horses plodded steadily on in the slow trot set by their leader, gave ear to what the general was saying, and the daughter turned on her abstracted es- cort. The tone was low, the manner was that assured, possessive, not to say positive, mien which youthful wom- anhood so often adopts toward the swain of whose devo- tion there can be no manner of doubt : "Why didn't you tell me you spoke French?" "I thought you knew." "Thought I knew? Why, Mr. Freeman, I never Why, do you suppose I would have said anything in French if I thought you understood it?" "I suppose you wouldn't have been so impolite as to talk in a tongue you thought I couldn't understand." And now it was plain that Mr. Freeman, in his access of good spirits, was mischievously enjoying the situation. This was intolerable. Moreover, it was hazardous. A very pretty, yet invisible, foot came down on the floor of the trap with a bang. "I think you are very impertinent !" said Miss Morgan, her red-gold hair looking almost blond in the light from her flushing face. -How dare he trifle with the moods of a girl with the temper and hair of Elizabeth Tudor ? The Rock of Chickamauga. 69 "Your French was nothing to be ashamed of," said he suggestively. "Where were you taught, I'd like to know?" replied the lady. "French or manners ?" This very calmly. Positively Mr. Freeman must have been promoted major, or other- wise exalted far beyond his deserts, to become of a sud- den so independent. "French, of course. Manners are quite out of the question." "In France principally." This both impassive and in- different. "When were you ever in France?" "Most of my boyhood and some of my youth." "And you let me " she began impressively, then broke off in speechless indignation. "Certainly! Your French, at least, was comprehen- sible. Your manner was not." She longed to be very angry. She wished to sting him, to make him smart for his treachery. But there were some things she needed to know, and quickly, too. She could punish him later any time, in fact. Every girl, once sure of the man, knows how. But later might be too late to learn what she needed to learn at once. Pointed darts could be held in reserve. It was a pointed question she needed to ask, and of whom else dare she ask it? "Why did the general inquire about your French? Doesn't he understand it? I thought all West Pointers had to." yo The Rock of Chickamauga. "They have to study it, at long range, a while. It's another thing to understand it." A moment's pause. She was regarding him intently now. Then came : "I didn't imagine anybody would need French here, and if they did there were lots of officers." "Who are they, and where?" asked Freeman suddenly and unexpectedly. "The general said he could hear of none who had more than a smattering. Do you know any one?" And now the big, blue eyes were full upon her, kindling, jealous, and again she went crimson under the scrutiny. Then the woman in her rallied, and the next question had a ring of defiance. "And if I did isn't one enough for the purpose?" And, forgetful for the moment of anything but the long- ing to probe the mystery, to establish the identity of the unknown rival, or rivals, of whose existence he felt mor- ally certain, Freeman fell into the trap. Half-designed as it was, it was more than half-successful. "One may be enough, right here, but more are needed. Whom could you name ?" "I don't l.now any one who would answer," was the almost cold reply. "I can't imagine why any one is needed." But the swift-changing color, the sudden droop of the eyelids, and the sweep of the long lashes over the flushing cheek told Ned Freeman another story, and one he little liked. They had turned through an opening in the fence, and up a gentle incline in a broad, open field, with a Kentucky The Rock of Chickamauga. 71 house bordering its westward side some two hundred yards away. They drove up before a big tent, like the colonel's marquee at the Illinois camp, with a broad fly spread in front, and smaller tents scattered about in flank and rear, with three or four officers rising from their camp-chairs, and soldier clerks seated at desks or tables within the open tent, and half a dozen negro boys running to receive the horses. Slowly the general dis- mounted and gave an orderly the reins. Quickly Free- man sprang from saddle and stepped to the carryall's side, aiding mother and daughter to alight, and be re- ceived with the grave courtesy for which the tawny- bearded chief was already known. One after another, Thomas presented his new staff-officers to the arriving party; bade Fulmer, aide-de-camp, take Freeman to his tent; then personally led the way westward to the side gateway of the large, old-fashioned country house beyond the bordering hedge. "Mrs. Helm," said he, "will be more than pleased to welcome you, Mrs. Morgan. She knows Donald well." And the mention of that name seemed all-sufficient. One look only did Miss Morgan vouchsafe her recent escort as she was led away. She had thought, possibly, to have him longer where he could be cross-questioned. She had hoped, perhaps, to ascertain something still more definite. She was fearful, probably, that impulsively as he had spoken, he might speak again tell some one else what he told her and, knowing well that she would catch his eye, had ventured that one quick and meaning glance. With it she placed the tip of her forefinger on her pretty lips 72 The Rock of Chickamauga. and left him perplexed he who less than half an hour before had been elated. "Which way did you come?" Freeman's new host was asking, as together the two young officers walked away. Fulmer was looking not too favorably at Freeman's shabby attire, and wondering what meant this new, if but temporary, addition to the general's military family. "See or hear of any rebs ?" "We came over the hill road Crab Orchard," an- swered Freeman briefly. "Saw hardly anybody except country folk, and heard nothing at least," and now he remembered one or two low-toned talks of the Morgans with their rustic entertainers when they halted for short rests, "I heard nothing." Lieutenant Fulmer looked about him. The December afternoon was still and sunshiny. The air was keen, frosty, and exhilarating ; the sky a beautiful blue. A line of distant heights toward the Cumberland loomed clear and sharp across the southerly horizon. The smoke from neighboring camp-fires and the chimneys of the Helm house soared straight aloft, and, .but for the occasional glimpse of arms and uniform, and the stamp of chargers along the fence at the rear, all spoke of peace and tran- quillity. "I was at Somerset," said Fulmer, "when they were making up that packet of letters to go to you, and, of course, know who you are, so I don't mind telling you we were just about mounting and going out in search of the general when we saw him coming with you. There's news over from the Cumberland he won't like. The Rock of Chickamauga. 73 Schoepf's falling back. Zollicoffer is across with his whole command. Somebody must have told him how scattered we were and how few we had to cover so long a line. Think of the cheek of it !" "Did you see the rider who was captured with those letters?" asked Freeman, on the instant. The few words spoken by the general had invested that episode with im- portance exceeding the fact that a Southern brigade, strong in numbers and purpose, was marshaled in their immediate front barely thirty miles away'. "I didn't see him. He was nabbed by some of Sam Wetherby's fellows, while I'd gone ahead with orders for Colonel Hoskins. They've sent him back to Louis- ville for General Buell to get a look at him. He had letters from reb officers to people in this neighborhood, and some of them written in French from an officer of a battalion of Zouaves over in Columbus, on the Missis- sippi. Those fellows are all from New Orleans " Freeman, who had whipped off coat and collar and was preparing for as deep a dip in cool water as the tin basin would allow, looked up suddenly : "Colonel Rolfe, our colonel, was speaking of them a few days ago. They are all French by birth. But why send the letters way round here? They could run them into our line just as easy there." "Oh, yes, that's easy ; but then they'd have to traverse half the State to get here, with Union people and soldiers all the way. On the other hand, letters come by Memphis and Nashville, and there's nobody to interfere. You see, the people to be reached are right around there back of 74 The Rock of Chickamauga. Somerset. It did look queer that there should be a letter for you in the lot." "The man that wrote it will look queerer by the time I'm done with him," was the grim response, "if ever I get hold of him. Who who saw or read the letters ?" he asked, reddening behind his towel. "The general only. He would let no one else examine it or any of them, for that matter. There were only half a dozen all told. Yours and Colonel Morgan's were delivered. The others were sealed and sent to General Buell." Freeman turned again and looked toward the home- stead within whose doors the Morgans and his general had so recently vanished. Already the general was re- turning, having left his friends to the ministrations of their hostess. He was walking slowly, ponderously, through the gateway and out into the open field, his close- cropped, curly beard upon his massive chest, his gaze upon the ground. One hand, the left, was thrown be- hind him, the forearm on the waist. The other, holding a crumpled paper, was thrust into the breast of the old cavalry coat. Slow as was his pace, the "pose" was sig- nificant, for Mr. Fulmer exclaimed in undertone : "He's got the news, anyway. Now, let's see what'll happen!" The general was moving straight for the office-tent, where his adjutant-general awaited him. The sun was well down in the western sky, and its brilliant beams turned the hair and beard to gold as Thomas drew off his black felt hat and then, in placid tones, called for his field-glass. A soldier from a neighboring tent came The Rock of Chickamauga. 75 with it on the run. His excitement was in curious con- trast to the commander's calm. Of the three officers who stood awaiting the general's possible instructions, not one ventured to offer a remark or suggestion. Slowly and deliberately the binocular was adjusted. Already other officers were out with theirs, and leveling on that low and distant line of heights. Off there somewhere, at the Mill Springs crossing, it was said, an entire division of Confederate soldiery was even now in camp. Their cavalry scouts had been seen that very afternoon not a dozen miles away. Their light guns had been tossing shells at the tents of General Schoepf, farther up-stream, and Schoepf, disgusted that his outposts should have been caught napping, was calling right and left for reen- forcements and falling back on Somerset. And this was the news that had set everything about camp to buzzing, everything and everybody, apparently, except the calm, methodical soldier in the dress of a colonel of cavalry. The raw brigades were extended along a line near seventy miles in length, their outposts thrown well forward toward the beautiful Cumberland, their untrained cavalry pickets supposedly at the fords. Sidney Johnston knew full well his former loyal major's dispositions. The land was full of Southern sympa- thizers, eager to give the gray leader every aid and wel- come. The friends of the Union who could or dare tell what Johnston was doing were few as the others were many. It had been Buell's plan and purpose, as speedily as possible, to send forward his divisions across the Cum- berland and give battle to the invader from the South. It The Rock of Chickamauga. was hardly conceivable that, with only a single division, a Southern leader should dare take the initiative and cross in face of the rapidly gathering army at the north, "with the foe in his front and the river behind." It is the unexpected that happens. To the astonishment of Buell back at Louisville, to the ill-concealed uneasiness of his immediate commanders, Crittenden at Knoxville and Johnston at Nashville, the Tennessee editor-general had planted his guns and battalions on the northern bank, and was shaking a mailed fist in the very faces of the de- fenders of the "dark and bloody ground"; a novice of a volunteer cavalry captain was going rearward in dis- grace; an Ohio volunteer colonel, brave and zealous, found himself suddenly thrown back by gray-coated cav- aliers he had every reason to believe a dozen miles away ; a brigadier, censured and chagrined, was trying to ex- plain matters, fix the responsibility, fight back the dis- turbers, and form a new line all in the same moment; and here in the open field with anxious, distressful eyes peering at him from the Helm house windows ; with a perturbed and troubled staff moving nervously, restlessly about, biting lips and mustaches, and muttering maledic- tions on such wretched work at the front, murmuring queries as to what they'd be saying of it and of them, at the rear here stood the soldier now charged with the defense of all that long line, the man whom critics would surely carp at and superior headquarters be sure to blame, and neither by word, look, nor sign had he ex- pressed either vexation or surprise. Could it be, as some one had already claimed, that The Rock of Chickamauga. 77 the Virginian rejoiced at the cause of Virginia's gaining ground? Could it be, as others had said, that he was so slow, stolid, impassive, that it took him hours to wake up, days to make up his mind, and weeks to act? A young staff captain, recently out from Louisville, cog- nizant of the commander's hopes and plans and well knowing with what depth of chagrin Buell would have to get the news to Washington, came wrathfully to Fulmer. "Man alive!" he muttered, glancing almost resentfully at the strong, calm poise of the general, still thoughtfully studying that Southern horizon. "Isn't he going to say or do something? Why, with Bull Run and Ball's Bluff to wipe out in the East, and everybody expecting us to do it here in the West, now, at the very time when Buell's counted on as a Christmas gift to whip the rebs out of Kentucky, here they come bounding up in our faces and the Old Man doesn't seem to care a damn !" "You let the 'Old Man' alone," growled Fulmer. "When you know the half of what he's forgotten, it'll be time for you to talk. The general wants you, Freeman." This with utter and sudden change of manner, for the general at last had turned, signaled, and said three words. With beating heart, the tall young officer in the shabby coat hastened to his commander's side, and when at a few paces' distance, true to the two years' teaching he had had at West Point, and obedient to he knew not what quiet force in the steady, steel-gray eyes, halted short and stood attention. Every eye in that enclosure, with others doubt- less peering through the blinds at the neighboring home- stead, seemed riveted and focused on the two. 78 The Rock of Chickamauga. "I need you to begin work sooner than I thought. Are you ready?" And the general was calmly, gravely look- ing him over. Freeman's heart was beating high. He was struggling to keep down the excitement that thrilled in every nerve. He was expectant now of orders to mount instanter, and ride straightway to the rebel lines and bid them begone or something equally perilous. "Yes, sir," was all he could say. "Then put this into French," said Thomas, "and when it is ready bring it to me. There's my desk." Half-dazed and without a word, Freeman took the paper handed him, turned half-stupidly away, and looked dumbly about him until he saw the general's open tent with the field-desk on its stocky table. Thither he went, and there he seated himself, and, unfolding the half-sheet, began half-blindly to read, his blue eyes dilating at al- most the first words that caught them. Meantime the general, signaling to an orderly, handed him the glass and was turning slowly away, when there arose a clatter of hoofs and scabbards in the roadway, a little squad of horsemen trotted swiftly into view from behind the fringe of shrubbery, and the two foremost came cantering through the opening in the fence and up the gentle slope ; a colonel in new, yet dusty, uniform; an adjutant, still more travel-stained; followed presently by a single trooper, who sprang from saddle as his officers dis- mounted, and then possessed himself of the abandoned reins. The fine features of the colonel were clouded with The Rock of Chickamauga. 79 anxiety and distress. He came forward squarely and manfully, with the look of a leader who had disappointed his superior, yet knew himself to be blameless. Straight he looked his general in the eye. "It is sorry news I had to send you, sir, but there can be no doubt of it. Zollicoffer's whole command is across, in spite of us. But, General Thomas, I was assured by General Schoepf that our cavalry lined the bank and held the fords in my front. We were bowled over by a charge before ever a man had time to load. Disaster was the last thing we looked for." "There has been none," said Thomas placidly. "I'm thinking of the effect it will have in the State, and in the North," said the colonel. Even in the chill of the coming night the moisture was beading on his forehead. "So am I," said Thomas placidly as before, "when we get through with it. Colonel Connell, it isn't so much the way a battle begins as the way it ends that counts." Slowly the worry in the colonel's face was giving way to wonderment and then to relief. The dawn of a new understanding was breaking before his eyes; still, there was something more he had to report : "General Schoepf begged me to say that just as quick as he can get his people together, and Rolfe up from Crab Orchard, he'd be ready to attack." "The general need not worry," was the quiet answer. "I'm sending word to him to hold his horses till we're ready." CHAPTER VII. "Till we're quite ready!" Time and again during the days that followed Ned Freeman found himself ponder- ing over those words. There came a week fraught with consequence to him, and, as it proved, to his entire future. It was a week full of vivid import and interest to all about the general's field-headquarters. Early on the following morning every officer and man about camp seemed up and alert. Something stirring was in the wind. The general had spent an hour in the eve- ning in conference with the gray-haired Virginian, to whom long service on the staff of successive governors, and the expansive custom of the Southland, had given the title of colonel. Dignified, yet courteous and gentle in manner, one of the old school of gentlemen, now, alas ! well-nigh extinct, the elder Morgan clung to his preroga- tive with admirable tenacity. In spite of the fact that General Thomas himself had never failed to speak to or of him as colonel, there was not lacking officers of rank among the callers at headquarters who palpably balked at the title, intimating in their avoidance thereof that the time had come when only those who were in the national service were warranted in laying claim to military dis- tinction. "Mr. Morgan," as a few referred to him among themselves, was of far finer breeding than most of their number, and among certain irreverent juniors there was a tendency toward ridicule of what they termed his "airs The Rock of Chickamauga. 8 1 and graces." But such demonstrations came to abrupt end the moment the general was seen approaching, and only once did one of their number find himself caught in the act. It happened the second evening after the coming of the Morgans, and a light-hearted slip of a lieutenant, join- ing the circle at a regimental camp-fire and never noting the presence of a distinguished visitor, drew himself up with impressive dignity at the invitation, "Take a seat, Mr. Bayless," loftily raised his cap, and, in excellent imitation of the elderly Virginian, replied, "Colonel Bay- less, if you will pahdon me, suh," and then was aghast when a moment of dead silence rewarded his pleasantry. He could have sunk into the ground when he heard the quiet, even tones of the general, as without the faintest show of annoyance or rebuke, with even a pleasant smile, Thomas spoke : "My old friend is of unusual type, and I don't wonder Western-bred men find him hard to understand. He has the manners of the colonial period, and to him a Vir- ginia colonelcy means quite as much as it once did to George Washington. I haven't a doubt that if he had re- mained in Virginia he would be colonel there, or some- thing more, to-day, but," and now the tone saddened per- ceptibly, "but I fear on the other side." And now young Bayless, as he later said, could have knelt and kissed the general's hand. "I beg a thousand pardons, general," he stammered. "I hadn't an idea you were here, and I shouldn't have done it anyhow ; only, as you say, sir, we ain't used to such fine 82 The Rock of Chickamauga. manners. My dad, though, would up and baste me with a flail if he'd heard me." "Let me tell you a bit about Morgan," said Thomas, in his kindly, fatherly way. He had ever a helping hand and a soft heart for the young officer. "Our fathers were friends and neighbors, our forefathers were Welsh, and his mother was of the old Scotch loyalist stock, the clans that clung to the Stuarts to the last. He really belongs to a past day and generation. His father was an offi- cer in the Welsh Fusiliers the 236. Regiment of the British army before he resigned to move to Virginia; and so the son, the colonel, is a born soldier. Three gov- ernors have named him aide-de-camp, and what do you suppose ended it? The hanging of John Brown. Mor- gan differed with his governor over an order he had re- ceived. He obeyed it ; then resigned. Life lost its charm for him after that. They almost ostracized him, I fancy. He sold his property at a sacrifice ; moved over here last summer, and here he is with his wife and daughter and two or three of the old household servants, but without his son." There was a moment of silence. There were probably twenty present. It was an Ohio regiment, and it was the colonel's custom to welcome his officers for an hour every evening, and, as was the general's kindly way, with only Lieutenant Fulmer in attendance, he had dropped in upon the circle for a social call. The simple recital had placed the exiled Virginian in a new, a sympathetic, light. A question trembled on the lips of more than one man who had made the acquaintance of the little household at The Rock of Chlckamauga* 83 the Helms'. It was the colonel who finally gave it voice : "General, where is Donald, of whom they talk so much?" "Where would he be, if he had his way? Educated at the Virginia Military Institute, and a sophomore at Char- lottesville, the Virginia university, when they moved, his father tried to bind him by his word of honor not to fight against the old flag. He would only give it until he be- came of age." Another silence; then Connell asked again: "Isn't he pretty near twenty-one now ?" There was a distinct pause before the answer came : "He was twenty-one the night Zollicoffer crossed the Cumberland." Two hours later when Fulmer was telling this story to his temporary tentmate, he was surprised to see Mr. Free- man look up in quick amaze, but still more surprised to see that Mr. Freeman was obviously startled, even discon- certed, by the statement. A moment more, and with abrupt "Excuse me, will you I've I've got to see the general," Freeman bolted out into the starry night. "Harder hit than even I thought," said Fulmer to him- self. "That girl's got him bewitched small blame to him. But why the devil should he bolt when told brother Don had turned reb ? What else was to be expected ?" What else, indeed? A long hour of love-making had Ned Freeman enjoyed, or suffered, that eventful evening, after other callers had departed and while the elders were in close converse about the bright wood fire in Mrs. 84 The Rock of Chickamauga. Helm's cozy, old-fashioned parlor. The general had joined them, and gravely, gently talked with the three. It was evident to Freeman that something had happened to arouse both anxiety and grief, for Mrs. Morgan could with difficulty restrain her tears, and the colonel's fine old face was full of trouble. And this night, too, Fanny Morgan's beautiful eyes were forever wandering. She was nervous, fitful, one moment almost appealing, the next unmindful of his presence. He had had a definite purpose in calling. He had heard that they were to re- turn to The Oaks the following day, He had thought of begging the general's permission to ride back with them, so as to confer with Colonel Rolfe upon his pos- sible detail for more staff duty. The regiment had struck camp for higher ground, but was even nearer the Clai- tjorne farm, ancj no farther from the homestead that had been t}ie center of his longings. Freeman wished to be their escort, yet there would be no opportunity for heart- to-heart talk with this strange, elusive, fascinating girl. She had had so much to say at first of brother Don; now, she shrank from mention of him. She had never spoken of a certain Jack Barbour, a Varsity chum of Donald's, yet a Kentuckian. The young men had first met when wearing the cadet gray at Lexington, and rumor told the rest. Three or four fellows of the Fourth Kentucky, Speed Fry's regiment, as well as Cap- tain Sam Wetherby, of the cavalry, had lost no time in coming to call on pretty Fanny Morgan at the Helms', and not a little had they had to say around headquarters camp about this same Jack Barbour and his utter infatua- The Rock of Chickamauga. 85 tion for his college chum's fair sister. This was news that stirred Ned Freeman to the core and disturbed him beyond words. This night he had determined she should speak of Jack Barbour, that he should know whether the Kentuckian had won her heart; and, to his infinite per- plexity, when it should have been to his utter gratifica- tion, she had suddenly checked him with, "Don't speak to rrie of Mr. Jack Barbour! I hope I may never set eyes on him again !" Now, what more should an ardent lover need in the way of reassurance than so flat-footed a statement? a stamp such as that he heard oh the floor of the carryall went with the statement yet it did not reassitre him at all. The very manner suggested there had been a lovers' quarrel. He had tried to induce her to tell more of Bar- bour, but to no purpose; and when the general rose to say good night he signaled Freeman to follow. A negro servant had come riding over to the Helms' during the late afternoon, with a letter from The Oaks for Colonel Morgan. Probably it brought addition to the disquieting news, for the Virginian's face, sad and care-worn as it ever seemed to Freeman, looked doubly sad to-night. Hardly were the two out of ear-shot of the house when the general stopped and faced his junior. "Mr. Freeman," said he, "was Major Cutler a guest, a visitor, at Colonel Rolfe's before you left?" "Yes, sir. For two days, I think." The general's head was bowed in thought. Under the starlit heaven he presently bared it and stood, hat in hand, pondering deeply. A paper fell from the inner 86 The Rock of Chickamauga. hat-band and fluttered noiseless to the frozen ground. Freeman, absorbed in his commander, never noticed it. His eyes were on the general's face as the latter looked up. "I have never met your colonel since his cadet days," said he. "He was among my pupils in tactics and riding, and I thought highly of him. Then he went to my old regiment in the artillery, and I hoped I thought it might be agreeable to him to be assigned here to my command," and now the general looked almost wist- fully into the young officer's face. "I'm sure of it, sir," said Freeman impulsively. "I should like to be sure of it," said Thomas reflect- ively. "But 'many men, many minds.' I may have left an enemy or two in the artillery." "You didn't at the Point, sir! The older cadets were still talking of you when we entered." "Let me ask you, Freeman. Did Colonel Rolfe seem annoyed at my having called for your services here?" "Not a bit of it, general. I think he wished the whole regiment were coming at the same time." "Well, say no more of it. I shall write and tell him why I need you here just now, and I may need you very much. Something has occurred to perplex me a little but of this I'll tell you later." That was at half-past nine, and now, barely twenty minutes later, Ned Freeman was again at his general's side. He had come, troubled and embarrassed, to ask that he might go at once to-morrow that he might ride over with the Morgans. There there was something he The Rock of Chickamauga. 87 needed very much to know, whereat the silver-blue eyes softened and the rare smile stole to the bearded lips, as the general gave his consent. That was just before ten, and now, though soldier bedtime was at hand, Ned Free- man went out into the night. He had need to think, and to think carefully. Loverlike, he found himself presently drifting over to- ward the Helms'. The quaint old country home stood in summer-time bowered among shade trees, but now their branches were bare, and the candle-light was faintly gleaming in two windows, one on the first floor next the front, the other in the second floor beneath the eaves, and almost directly above the first. Some of the household, then, were still in the sitting-room. One had gone to her room, and more than once before this sparkling, star- lit night had Mr. Freeman rhapsodied beneath that window. It was very still. The low murmur of voices about headquarters had died away, but a shadowy form or two could still be seen flitting about the lighted candles. Against the eastward sky the black form of the sentry, muffled in overcoat and cape, was outlined on the little hill, "slowly pacing his beat in front of the general's tent ; but his footfalls were at the distance inaudible. A guard- fire, burning low, threw a flickering gleam upon the single wall-tent at the entrance from the highway, where the sentry's comrades dozed or murmured the hours away. Over at Wetherby's camp, beyond the bend, the wearied troopers, after a long day's scout toward the Cumberland, had sought their blankets; even the trurn- The Rock of Chickamauga. peter turning in without first sounding the unnecessary signal to extinguish lights. Still farther away by the side of the Somerset Road the camp of the Ohio volun- teers lay hidden by a low, intervening ridge, and the only sound to break the silence of the night was the occa- sional bay of distant watch-dogs, at the far-away farms and homesteads toward the south. Yet there was sig- nificance even in that. With hands clasped behind him and with lowered head, Freeman had slowly, noiselessly approached the little gate through which he had followed his general some twenty minutes earlier. It stood in thick darkness, but he knew the way, and went quietly through ; passed around to the front of the house and stood there a moment, thinking painfully, among the leafless shrubbery. Aloft the light in the corner chamber-window shone much brighter than it did at the side. The candle, or a pair of them, perhaps, must be standing quite close to the white shade. Freeman heard footsteps in the hallway and the shooting of bolts at the door. Evidently the house- hold was locking up for the night. Presently the lights oh the lower floor were moved away carried into the hallway and up the stairs and all below was darkness. Odd, that when everything was so quiet hereabouts there should be such clamor among the farm dogs far to the south. The roads and bridle-paths were well picketed; there was little likelihood of a night attack from the Cumberland. Still, such things had happened. Every- thing in that direction, save the spangled sky, was utter darkness. Everything about him now, save that one The Rock of Chickamauga. 89 brightly lighted window her window was wrapped in gloom. He moved softly over to the fence along the highway, found the gate, and passed noiselessly into th road ; then paused irresolute. He was tired and worried, yet wakeful with his thoughts of her. Not that she was in danger, only indifferent; unless it be that she was trifling utterly with him, and troubled about that devoted young Kentuckian, now, doubtless, somewhere with Don- ald over yonder within the Confederate lines. He paced a few rods up the road toward the little vil- lage, sleeping peacefully and surrounded by watchful guards. He turned again, and once more approached the homestead. How brilliant that one window looked in contrast with the surrounding gloom! How odd that it should be the only one ! How curious, how constant, was that distant dog-chorils toward the Cumberland ! And then, just as he regained the front of the house and stood at the shorn arid wintry hedge-row, afar across the low ground to the south, where all had been dark- ness since his coming, even while he stood gazing In that direction and listening with all his ears, there popped suddenly into view a single light, as of a lantern, over in the midst of what he knew to be a patch of woods some five hundred yards to the south of the highway, and directly opposite the homestead of the Helms'. A year earlier, while in New York, he had been to see Boucicault's charming play, "The Colleen Bawn." He remembered vividly the lovely scenery of the first act; the moonlit lake, surrounded by wooded heights ; the gar- den of the proud homestead, with the corner of the build- 90 The Rock of Chickamauga. ing, the porch, and the dimly glowing windows of an up- per chamber in the foreground; the dark figures in the shadows ; the whispered tale to sorrowing mother of her son's love for the low-born girl in the cottage beyond the water ; the coming of the candle-light afar across the silent deep; the murmured story of the signal, "Watch now. 'Twill disappear three times. That means, 'Are you coming ?' " the sudden extinguishing of the light in Hardress Cregan's windows ; that means, "I am." And Ned Freeman, with beating heart and trembling limbs, stood gazing first at the glowing window above the latticed porch ; then at the spot where, but the moment before, had flashed the fair, white light, now utterly van- ished. And as he gazed, once again, suddenly as before, it burst upon the view, blazed steadily perhaps five sec- onds, went suddenly out, once more reappeared; and so it broke and blazed and vanished three separate times, and then, as it were, paused for a reply. With dread in his eyes and rage in his heart, Freeman turned and looked once more aloft. The chamber-light burned steadily still, four, five seconds. Then, in a single breath, all was darkness. CHAPTER VIII. When the Morgan carryall drove homeward across the hills next day, Lieutenant Freeman, as had been arranged, rode away in attendance, but, as Frances Morgan read at a glance, it was a different man in a widely different mood. In sadness, almost in silence, the elders sat side by side in front. In silence and in deep resentment, Ned Freeman sat in saddle, declining almost curtly the colonel's invitation to ride a while in the carriage and let his charger follow. Every mile or so they met patrols or pickets until well away from the Somerset Road and headed for the west fork. Twice or thrice they stopped to exchange greetings with officers in blue, who looked wistfully at the vacant seat beside Miss Morgan. They stopped for rest and to water the horses at the Todd farm, ten miles on their way, and for dinner and nooning at the Hardin place, well up the dividing ridge. Here the Morgans spent two hours, the elders in deep and earnest conference in a room aloft, and Fanny in a veri- table pet, and the sitting-room, below. Here Mr. Free- man should have joined her, all contrition and eagerness to explain his unaccountable misbehavior; but here he came not. Dinner over, he had gone forth to the barn to look after the horses, as he said, and when at two o'clock the carryall was tooled round to the front by a jubilant young darky, he brought the surprising message that Marss Freeman left his compliments and he was 92 The Rock of Chickamauga. riding on ahead, as they were now beyond any danger. Freeman had even declined Colonel Morgan's pressing invitation to stop and take supper with them at The Oaks. Freeman said Colonel Rolfe would be waiting probably for the news he might bring, and Colonel Rolfe was not waiting at all. Colonel Rolfe met the carryall three miles o'ut from camp and two miles from The Oaks, and turned back with it and talked cheerily all the way. It Was not fatigue alone that sent Fanny Morgan early to her room that night. She was indignant, she was an- gered, she was even hurt; but, most of all, she was sorely troubled, for in Freeman's changed tone and man- ner she read that he might have discovered something she had hoped to keep utterly to herself. She wondered just how much he knew. She grieved and fretted in- expressibly that he should have discovered anything. She would have been startled, indeed, could she have known how much. For a few moments, after witnessing the exchange of signals, Freeman had waited, irresolute, considering what he Ought to do. As a gentleman he ought to go. As ah officer, however, he had a duty. It was time of war. It was a suspected family. The son was probably in the Confederate service, and the son's most intimate friend and chuni could hardly be otherwise. No one who had spoken of Mr. Jack Barbour had named his rank or regi- ment in the Southern army, but no one doubted for a moment that. Southern as he was by birth, by breeding, and by education, in the Southern army he undoubtedly iriust be. Few of his clan had held to the cause of the . The Rock of Chick^mauga. 93 Union. Most of them were with their kinsman, George Crittenden, major-general in the Confederate Army, with headquarters over at Knoxville, and with his men-at- arms everywhere along the Cumberland front, mountain, ford, or river. More than once Freeman had heard Jack Barbour's name in the conversation between General Thomas and the elder Morgans. Now, could it be that Frances Morgan was looking for a messenger from lover or brother beyond the lines and that the messenger was at hand? The war was young, and so was Freeman. The bitter earnestness of the struggle had not yet impressed him. He was of the old cavalier stock. Soldier of the Union though he was, he could not spy upon the girl he loved. Sharply he turned and went whistling through the side gateway back to camp, and there, in front of the tent, in the dim firelight, the sentry paced as before ; there in the general's tent the light still burned. Two shadows were thrown upon the canvas, and the general was speaking. "I certainly had it in my hat-band when we came away, and now it's gone." "Did you happen to remove your hat before you got back?" That was Fulmer's voice, and Freeman, knowing just when and where the general had halted and asked him those questions as to Rolfe, stepped forward to the lighted entrance. "What is lost, general?" "A paper I had in my hat just some memoranda. 'You remember where we stopped, Freeman. Will you step back there and see what you can find ?" 94 The Rock of Chickamauga. And so orders, not inclination, took him thither again. He searched two or three minutes, lighting first one, then another match to aid him, and presently saw exactly what he sought, a crumpled paper close to that side gateway close to the leafless hedge. The last match burned out as he stepped thither to recover the prize, stooped, and felt for it with his hand. It was an elusive object, or else some grinding heel had driven it into the soil, for the finger-tips swept past it, or over it, more than once before they fastened upon it, and then, even as he still knelt, facing the homestead, there fell upon his ears the sound of murmuring voices, a sob, a man's deep tones, sup- pressed, yet eager and pleading ; answered only, so far as Freeman could judge, by tears. The voice of this night suitor, with its caressing Southern intonation, appealed to him strangely, in spite of jealousy and wrath. Surely it must appeal to her. No word had he distinguished, nor would he try. Si- lently, stealthily, he crept away until beyond ear-shot, then, with tingling nerves, hied himself swiftly to his general and from him back to his own bitter thoughts. He had brought relief to his commander and found only added worry for himself. Once more before the start Freeman had wandered down toward the gate. The general had referred to the fact that had already been noted by his young assistant during his search for the paper something heavy had trodden it into the ground, for it was crushed and stained. The ground was too hard for the impress of human foot, })ut, close to the hedgerow on the turf, Freeman noted The Rock of Chickamauga. 95 the print of hoofs. A panel of fence nearest the hedge was missing. A horse had recently been led or ridden close along the row to another gateway, leading to the barn at the rear of the house, and now, within ten feet of that side gateway, lay a horse's shoe. Mechanically Freeman picked it up, carried it a short distance, then tossed it aside. He had no faith in omens. For hours after he hardly thought of it again. Leaving the Morgans at the Hardin place and delib- erately avoiding the Morgan homestead as he neared the fork, Freeman rode moodily down into the valley, by the winding bridle-path, to the Claiborne farm. He wished to inquire for the ferryman whom he had pulled from the wrathful waters, and for that plucky and de- voted girl, his daughter. The afternoon sunshine was still warm as his tired horse threaded a way to the stream bank, but the ice spread in thin sheets at the edge of the shaded pool. There lay the skiff moored at the little landing a hundred yards below him. There beyond the near-by field stood Claiborne's modest home and scattered outbuildings. Some one was busy about the house, for Freeman could see the smoke rising straight from the kitchen chimney, and could hear the snort and pawing of a horse tied to the rail in front of the low porch. He had noted here and there, as he wound down the bridle-path, fresh footprints where the sun had reached and partially thawed the frosty ground. Some cavalier, then, had preceded him, and perhaps was paying court to Claiborne's daughter. He had noted that she was a very pretty girl, though, in her bedraggled condition The Rock of Chickamauga. the night of the flood, that fact might have escaped him. Moreover, he was in that brief stage of a lover's in- fatuation when he had eyes for but one girl's face an4 fascinations. Now, if the cavalier had come and tied his horse at his inamorata's doorway, who then could be this, kneeling among the leafless bushes at the snake- fence, peering stealthily through, and so absorbed in his scrutiny that he had neither ear nor eye for the coming horseman neither ear nor eye until the latter was nearly upon him and about to hail, for then the watcher sprang to his feet in sudden confusion, faced the travel-stained young soldier, and raised a practised hand in salute. It was the man O'Reilly. "What the devil are you doing there, O'Reilly?" de- manded Freeman, in quick and keen disapprobation. "Who are you spying on ?" "I beg the leftennent's pardon ! It's not spying I am, but there's places as has to be watched, as the colonel will say, sir, and more than one of them hereabouts." "Well, you're not detailed on scout duty that I know of, and I haven't yet quit the company. No more of this sort of thing until you get orders, O'Reilly." "The leftennent doesn't know the orders I'm gettin' while he was away," answered O'Reilly respectfully enough, "nor a hoith of what's been goin' on." "That will do/' sai4 Freeman, for the Irishman's eye was growing ugly and the tone sullen. "I'll hear it from the colonel later." With that he rode angering on to the gateway and thence to the house, where the tethered animal set up a The Rock of Chickamauga. 97 whinny of welcome and Freeman's mount responded. A pretty face appeared suddenly at the doorway as the of- ficer dismounted, slung the reins over a post, and then was astonished to see that face light suddenly and become as suddenly suffused with a radiant blush. The next moment it seemed as suddenly to pale with dread. Freeman stood looking at Kate Claiborne in perplex- ity and surprise. There could be no doubting the wel- come and gladness that shone in her face at first sight of him. There could be no mistake about the sudden pallor that followed. Even at the mention of his name, as it sprang to her lips, she turned with warning glance over her shoulder, and then, instead of bidding him welcome and inviting him to enter, stood practically barring the doorway, white to the very lips. "Father isn't here just now," she faltered. "He should be coming any moment. He rode over to see Colonel Rolfe about some some trespassing that has been going on. Did you wish to see him ?" "As I did you," was the answer, while the blue eyes studied her troubled face. "I came this way purposely to see how you were, after our adventure." And all the time he was wondering what manner of man she was harboring there and striving to hide from him. "No worse for the wetting at least," she answered, with evident effort. "I will tell father you called, Mr. Freeman, though you might meet him on the road." He saw the hint, but did not take it. "Colonel Rolfe is not at camp," said he designedly. "I happened to hear on the way over that he was out riding. It's my belief 98 The Rock of Chickamauga. he's coming back by way of the Morgans', and I'm tempted to wait for him here." The temptation must have come from within; there was none apparent in look or word of hers. It was the horses that came to her rescue. The strange animal, after first jubilantly welcoming anything that would dispel his loneliness, had turned to hostile demonstration. Tethered so far form the newcomer that he could not bite, he had bethought him of other weapons, and let fly with his heels. In the interests of peace Mr. Freeman was compelled to run down the steps and interpose. Miss Claiborne took that opportunity to dodge into the house. By the time the horses had been retied beyond kicking distance, she reappeared with a tin horn in her hand. "I'll call Hector from the barn," she said, and sounded a blast that should have brought him, but Hector came not, even after a third summons. A colored woman, addressed as Aunt Phoebe, appeared from the kitchen and said Hector had ridden to mill and couldn't be back before sundown ; but she would take the other horse to stable, and, with unaccustomed hand, she sought to loose him from the rail. It took Freeman's aid before the stiff leather would yield. "Whose horse is this, auntie ?" he asked, being quite a distance from the porch, and having reason for desiring to know. "Gunnel Mawgan's, suh," was the prompt answer. "I ., know at least, I thought so," was the impatient re- joinder, "but who rode him over?" The Rock of Chickamauga. 99 "Who rode him, suh? Why, one of the farm-hands, suh. Ah don' know his name. He's out yahnduh, waitin' for Hector." With that the negress led barn and feedward the cause of the recent disturbance, leaving the deserving and in- offensive at the rail, but Freeman was thinking little of his own mount. His eyes followed the nimble and van- ishing heels, for one of them had lost a shoe. And now Kate Claiborne, with a shawl thrown over her shoulders, came forth from the little sitting-room that opened on the porch and timidly asked if the lieutenant cared to step in and rest a while, or should she tell father he had called and would be glad to see father over at camp? Mr. Freeman had questions to ask that decided him to enter. He had not seen the little room since the evening of the storm. He marveled then, as he had on a previous visit, at the evidences of better days that stood on every hand. The costly, old-fashioned lamp, the few pictures, the books, the furniture, and curtains were not such as were seen among the humble farms of that section of Kentucky. Cheap in construction and humble in design, the house and its surroundings told of straight- ened circumstances ; yet, upon the sideboard and in many a little accessory, were bits of china and silver that spoke of former prosperity. "I did not know until a few days ago that this had only lately become your home," said Freeman. The girl uplifted a pair of dark eyes in one quick glance. "Who told you ?" she asked. loo TH$ Rock of Chlckamauga, "Miss Morgan, I think it was," hq answered, well knpwing that he knew it was. "Miss Morgan is " began the girl resentfully, then broke off suddenly. "We came here, from Louisiana not long ago, after after mother died," she continued, with brave effort. "A lawsuit left father almost penniless. We owe even this home to her brother over in Lebanon." "I thought you were not Kentuckiana," said he, stand- ing at the old round center-table and studying with in- terest the downcast face. "Were you educated in New Orleans?" "Yes, at the old Ursulines, even before we lost mother." Everything seemed to date from that, their first, their greatest misfortune. There came no reply. He who had begun with such confidence seemed sud- denly silenced. She who had stood before him with drooping eyes, her long lashes sweeping the pallid cheeks, presently ventured on an upward glance. She had been debating whether she ought to ask him to be seated. Aunt Phoebe and her sister, the cook, were singing in the kitchen (singing rather loudly and aggressively, thought Freeman), but neither could hardly pose as governess or chaperon. The look in his face startled her. He was gazing at her with dilating eyes, with quick-mounting color. Something new and startling had occurred to him. "Why, then, of course you speak French," said he, of a sudden. "What a dolt what an ass I am, and here I've dared to, call you Kitty, when I might have known that you were " Suggestive pause. The Rock of Chickam&.uga. /oi "What was I ?" she asked, very simply, but with dim- pling cheek and something akin to enjoyment. "Why oh, don't make me more ridiculous in my own sight, whatever I am in yours! A a lady, is what I mean not a " Farmer's daughter was what, in his deep humility he just stopped short of saying. The words did not sound right. Nothing he could say did or would. Yet she was almost archly smiling now. She was feeling a relief and comfort he neither fathomed nor suspected. She had dreaded question, investigation, perhaps, con- cerning the rider whom Phoebe had declared to be a farm-hand, which more than likely Mr. Freeman knew to be a lie. She had been at fearful disadvantage, for the "farm-hand," so described, lurked not ten feet away, and within hearing of every word they spoke. She had looked to see the young officer who had been so domi- nant, so commanding, and forceful the night of the deluge, so strong and brave and determined in face of the flood, when he plunged to her stricken father's aid, again strong, forceful, dominant; yet here he stood be- fore her, shame-stricken and abashed. What delicious empire it gave her! What security it gave to to her "farm-hand" ! Now she looked almost blithely into the blue eyes. "Why, every girl I knew spoke French. That was nothing! Mother's people were French Creoles. It was the first tongue I ever heard. We" she spoke it proudly, as became one of the tribe "mother's people are Mil- laudons." She had looked to impress him pleasantly. She was IO2 The Hock of Chickamauga. astounded at the effect. He stood gazing at her one moment stupidly. Then the question came slowly, reluc- tantly, as though he hated to ask, yet felt that he must : "You a Millaudon? Then Pierre Millaudon, of the Zouaves at Columbus ?" "Of the Zouaves, but not at Columbus; at Nashville, or near it, on staff duty now is my first cousin." Then something fell with a crash in the adjoining room. Once again the color left her face, and, with sud- den movement, she stepped between him and the door. But he hardly seemed to notice. The light of a strange, new knowledge was in his face. In bewilderment, al- most in distress, he gazed one moment into her eyes, then stammered: "Will you make my apologies to your father, Miss Miss Claiborne? I shall see him later. I must go." And as he went and rode away without one backward look, he rode unconscious of the malevolence in the eyes of the soldier lurking among the trees at the stream bank, unconscious of the disappointment, the trouble, the timid, growing, gathering tenderness in the dark eyes of the girl, standing there at the humble doorway, watching until, nearly half a mile distant, he passed from her sight. CHAPTER IX. Pierre Millaudon, of the Crescent Zouaves, erstwhile of the "Institut" at Grenoble, was a youth Ned Freeman little knew, less liked, and who hated him, as he had abundant reason to know, with Gallic force and fury. Freeman was an "old boy," an upper-class boy, in the famous finishing school, when young Millaudon there appeared, a lively, handsome, petted fellow from Louisi- ana, a lad who ruled at home, and, after all too brief ap- prenticeship, thought to lead- among his mates abroad. Bullying and fagging, after the Britannic method, were things unknown at Grenoble ; so, apparently, were Anglo- Saxon means of settling boy disputes. Freeman, the se- nior, caught Millaudon, a mere aspirant, severely caning a little lad of barely half his years, and the cane was snapped in fragments, after being laid resoundingly over Millaudon's smarting shoulders. In a fury, the Creole had demanded satisfaction the foils, pistols, any wea- pon, and, nothing of the kind being available within school limits, had dared his castigator to mortal combat without the walls, and was laughed at. Within the month that followed Millaudon stood dismissed for one esca- pade after another, one being an assault on Freeman with a knife. The knife had gone whirling one way and the assailant spinning another, floored from a crashing blow from the New Yorker's fist. There had come to Free- man a few weeks later a missive breathing wrath eternal, IO4 The Rock of Chickamauga. and it was torn to bits. He had almost forgotten Millau- don and his fulminations until that night of stress and storm in the camp of the th Illinois. No wonder General Thomas, who opened and read the letter, captured with others and their Tennessee bearer, addressed to an officer of his command, had seen fit to write in his own hand some words of warning to the son of one of his oldest friends and most cherished kinsfolk, Martha Freeman, nee Kirkwood, of Virginia. Something in the handwriting itself was suggestive of foreign education, if not extraction. The body of the communication, couched in the French language, left no measure of doubt. Translated, it read substantially as follows : Mill Springs, Kentucky, November 30, 1861. To Lieutenant Edgar C. Freeman, Illinois Regiment of Infantry, U. S. A. Camp near Crab Orchard, Ken- tucky : MONSIEUR: Again I find it possible to send you this expression of my defiance. Again I proclaim you coward and canaille. Again the memory of the hideous indigni- ties heaped upon me, made possible by your brutal strength, cries aloud for reparation and revenge. Again I demand of you the one amende possible to the soldier. It is but a day's ride for you to neutral ground. To meet you on the field of honor I would traverse afoot the broad realm of the South, which you dare not penetrate ; yet, for me, that appeal to you, it is possible to dare the hostile lines of these infamous invaders, to go the length of the land even within the shelter of your lines I will consent to meet you, accompanied by but a single witness. Had you the courage to cross the Cumberland, safe conduct for the return of yourself, or your remains, should be assured you, but on ground and with weapon The Rock of Chickamauga. 105 of your own choice I should leap to the desired combat, that at last I may wipe out the stain upon my honor which, inflicted by you, pursues me to the grave. If you are not coward beyond expression, unworthy the glances of the daughter of the South at whose feet you prostrate yourself each day, you will accord me this long-demanded meeting. Name your seconds, your time, and place, pledging only what remains of your honor as a soldier that I shall not be led into ambuscade or trap, and without further question you shall behold me there. If you refuse, then the gentleman who does me the honor to offer to be my witness shall pour my tale into the sympathetic ear of the sister of his friend, Mr. Don- ald Morgan, who shall despise you as you deserve. Awaiting the reply, which if left in the letter-box at the gateway of The Oaks will assuredly reach me, I remain, with due respect, PIERRE DUHAMEL MILLAUDON, Lieutenant, Crescent City Zouaves, Aide-de-camp. More than likely is it that but for two missives that came with this curious screed Ned Freeman would have begged a few days' leave, gathered up Sam Wetherby or some one of the young Kentuckians he had grown to know and like, and hied him to meet the fiery Creole, pre- pared to give him all the satisfaction demanded. But before opening the challenge he had read these first: MY DEAR BOY : I am enclosing to you a page from a recent letter of your mother, whom I have known since we were children. It accounts for the few words of ad- monition I must send you now. You have pledged your life and your sacred honor to the cause of your country, and a life so pledged is not to be sacrificed to the demand of an armed enemy of the United States on the ground of a personal quarrel. I have read the challenge that goes herewith, as it was my duty under existing circumstances, and under no cir- 106 The Rock of Chickamauga. cumstances could I prevent you should you accept it. Most certainly you shall not now. I shall see that General Johnston, whom I have long known, is informed of the matter, and this young fire- eater is bidden to confine his fighting to the field of battle. Meantime I wish to see you here on other matters, and trust that the order issued this day may not be dis- agreeable to you. One word more. Your dear mother is by no means the only one I have known who, at the Point, thought her son the object of some officer's malevolence. You are to be congratulated that so fine a soldier has come to command your regiment. Very sincerely yours, GEORGE H. THOMAS. Within this letter was a page in the handwriting he loved : "You know how ardently, had his father been spared to us, he would have sanctioned Edgar's choice. Though it almost breaks my heart to think that he may be ordered to march against the very homes and people t always, al- ways so dear to me, as indeed they must ever be to you, my boy is as his father would have him a soldier of the Union. "May God guard and guide him. There is only one ray of sunshine to cheer these, the darkest days of my life his regiment is to be under your command. Elsie and I were confounded when he jubilantly wrote that Mr. Rolfe, whom we knew as his most vehement op- pressor, if not his virulent enemy, at the Point, had been made colonel and was coming to command them. God forgive me if I am unjust, but, motherlike, I lay the blame of poor Edgar's discharge to that unsparing young The Rock of Chickamauga. 107 martinet. My boy has been ever high-spirited, full of life and ardor, and the regulations are oppressive, but his instructors in France, as a lad at Versailles, and later when he went for the cours at Grenoble, all said he had so much of esprit and ability. They simply could not ap- preciate him at West Point. "But now he is where you can have an eye and a guiding hand upon him, and for auld lang syne I know you will be a friend to my boy. I have not forgotten " But the rest was torn away. "Poor mummie," Free- man had whispered to himself, as he kissed the page. "She could never see anything but the angelic side of me, or the black side of Ruddy Rolfe, who's worth ten of me." There had been abundant time to think over what the general had written. Freeman had enjoyed putting into French certain missives laid before him at Liberty, but there was no acceptance of Millaudon's defiance. He had rejoiced, and was still rejoicing, at the confidence reposed in him, and proud of the reflection that, young as he was in years, rank, and experience, he knew something of the commander's plans and purposes of which even his colonel, and that meddlesome ass, Cutler, were ignorant. He was excited and alarmed to read that Messieurs Don- ald Morgan and Jack Barbour were named as friends and associates of the inflammable, unspeakable little "piou-piou" of a Creole whose vanity and gasconade had made him the butt of so much schoolboy derision. It was through them, doubtless, whom he had never seen, that young fire-eater had heard of his devotion to Frances io8 The Rock of Chickamauga. Morgan, yet how had they been informed? But he was utterly taken aback when frankly, fearlessly, told by Kate Claiborne that Pierre, the inflammable, was her first cousin. To the new camp of his regiment he had gone forth- with, reporting to Allis his return to duty, as the colonel was still away on his ride. The adjutant had greeted him with some surprise. It had been bruited that Freeman was appointed to some duty on Thomas's staff, and, as Thomas was a stranger to every officer, and nearly every man expect Rolfe and Freeman, the regiment had not been too well pleased. The fact that he hailed from New York instead of Illinois had been a handicap to begin with, but this was speedily overcome in admiration of his knowledge of the drill, and his ability to instruct the rank and file. With all his laughing, devil-may-care ways, Ned Freeman had somewhat reluctantly been con- ceded the palm as the "smartest" young officer on their rolls. Nevertheless, the regiment did not relish it that this general, of whom they knew so little, should choose him as its representative on his staff. These were very early war days, remember, and very new and unaccus- tomed officers, elected themselves by the men with whom they had enlisted, considered that regimental representa- tives of the staffs of general officers should be selected, as were their representatives in Congress, by the ballot of the represented. "If General Thomas wanted a repre- sentative of this regiment on his staff," said Captain Man- ning, who, as Freeman's company commander, felt espe- The Rock' of Chickamauga. 109 cially aggrieved, "why the devil didn't he say so, and we'd see that he get a man who could represent it !" They came clustering about the tent, these his com- rades as yet untried, as soon as it was known that Free- man was back, eager to learn the nature of his duties what manner of man was Thomas ? What had he seen and heard? What did he know? When were they going to move, and what in all creation meant it that the rebs were allowed to roost there in peace on our side of the Cum- berland? Why on earth didn't he shove out and smash them ? What could General Thomas be thinking of that he didn't order them forward at once? Regimental sen- timent, to judge from the tone of regimental comment, was well-nigh as hostile to General Thomas as to Gen- eral Zollicoffer, whereat Freeman bristled. "You fellows can all go to Ballyhack!" he finally shouted. "General Thomas knows what he's doing, and you don't know what you're saying. We'll get our or- ders quick enough." "Well get our orders? Who's we? I thought you were going on Thomas's staff ?" snapped Skinner. "You thought wrong," was the snap back. "There was something I happened to know about something I could be of use in for an hour or two, that's all. I'm back to stay." Now, this was distinctly disappointing. The regiment had made up its mind that it disapproved of the military method of selection of staff-officers, as exemplified in the case of Freeman, and now it seems they were wrong in supposing he had been selected, and men hate to be put in no The Rock of Chickamauga. the wrong. Perhaps had they known that the matter had actually been discussed, their resentment at the new and unexpected turn might have been modified. Very gravely the general had said to Freeman that he had all the staff- officers he needed for ordinary duty, that he should send for him in case his services as translator were again needed, and should have always a watchful eye over him ; but for the present, at least, his place was with his regi- ment, and, oddly enough, Freeman agreed with him. Just as oddly, perhaps, there were matters he did not choose to explain. He was in what even Rawson, his chum and tentmate, called a "huffy" frame of mind, and the blue eyes were kindling with more than one kind of exasperation, and from more than one cause, when at last the gathering broke up on the announcement of the or- derly that Colonel Rolfe had returned and would be glad to see Lieutenant Freeman at the lieutenant's con- venience, and Freeman went the moment he could button himself into the rehabilitated uniform. And Freeman had reason to be disturbed. Rawson and the regimental tailor had done their best with his belongings. The mud-stained uniform looked almost as good as new, and the overcoat had been mended, cleaned, and pressed ; but Freeman's face was grave, indeed, when told by his tentmate that careful search had been made for, but nothing had been found of, the packet of letters and the flat note-book. The note-book was in the inside pocket of that overcoat the hour he left The Oaks, as he had good reason to know. He had gone thence direct to the Claibornes, down under the heights, and after that The Rock of Chickamauga. 1 1 1 had come the deluge, after that had been given him the packet of letters. All over camp the candle-lights were beginning to gleam, and in the big marquee where sat the colonel, swinging lanterns threw their beams over the soldierly young face and form, and tinged with fire the auburn of his thick, clustering curls. Rolfe looked up from his writing with a pleasant smile. "Back in good time, Free- man," he called, as he held forth welcoming hand. "You bring us news we're going to move, I hope." "Why no, sir; not that exactly," was the answer. Rolfe's features clouded and his lips compressed. "I had so hoped for it," he said. "In the brief talk I had with General Buell, coming through, I saw how in- tent he was on clearing the State of everything in Con- federate gray, and I know the chagrin he must have felt in reporting Zollicoffer's advance to Washington." "Why, colonel," burst in Freeman impetuously, "he understands it all now. That will right itself just as soon as well, I don't know that I can explain it, but I know General Thomas isn't a bit bothered, and that he has written General Buell his views. If I might hazard a guess, he's got Zollicoffer just where he wants him, and hopes to keep him there until he's ready to strike." Rolfe shook his head. "That's the trouble," he said. "The North is mad with impatience. They can't un- derstand. They think we should be just as ready as the rebs, and more so. They can't understand this waiting, waiting. Why, if I could have pushed ahead with this regiment ten days ago, when I wanted to but you 1 1 1 The Rock of Chickamauga. haven't heard about that. I'm afraid it's as Major Cutler says, it'll be slow trot, slow trot, until too late. I am saying to you what I wouldn't say to another officer in the regiment, Freeman, but it's what I'd say to the gen- eral himself for I love him and don't want to see him downed." The color rose to Freeman's face. Well he remem- bered the general's inquiries about Cutler's visit, and his unspoken distrust of Cutler's influence. Young as he was, Freeman read that much in the general's reference to Rolfe his hope that Rolfe might be glad to serve with him, his fear that he might not, his admission that he might have left "some enemy in the old regiment." Freeman longed to speak to his colonel of what the gen- eral h^d said, and of what he himself felt, yet he knew not how. He had impulsively assured the general of Rolfe's loyalty and devotion. The general was his mother's old friend and playmate, and now his own patron and protector. Rolfe was his commanding officer and his former "tack." Not yet had he shaken off the sense of awful and official distance separating the cadet from the instructing and inspecting officer. But there was a matter on which he must speak, and that at once. "It's my belief, sir, that marching orders will come any day, almost any moment, and there's some- thing I've got to tend to. Rawson tells me he told you that a packet of letters and a note-book were missing from my overcoat pocket. He tells me he questioned the men who retrieved it, and they said it was Major Cutler who examined the pockets. Now, I beg pardon, sir, but The Rock of Chickamauga. 113 did Major Cutler say these things were missing when he made search?" Rolfe considered a moment. He had noted the same idea in Rawson's young face, in his glances at Cutler, and his hesitancy after he made report of the loss. More- over, Rolfe had chafed and fretted under Cutler's as- sumption of inquisitorial functions during his eventful visit. He disliked Cutler as he never disliked him be- fore, but Cutler was the trusted envoy of the general commanding the department. It would never do to ques- tion his integrity, or to permit such question among his subordinates. "That was something I did not presume to ask," he answered warningly. "Are there not others to whom you should first apply? Do you know or do you trust for instance these farm folk at the Qaibornes?" Freeman reddened again. "They have been very hos- pitable and useful to me, sir," he began. "And, Freeman, what I fear is, that you have been very much too useful to them. Look at this." And Rolfe held forth a closely written page, indicating with his thumb-nail the line at which he should read. It was marked "Confidential," and came from department head- quarters at Louisville. "It might be well to warn young Freeman to be very guarded in his dealings with this family. There is abun- dant reason to believe them in frequent communication with persons within the Confederate lines. Two of the captured letters were for the daughter. As to the Mor- gans " But here the page ended. 114 The Rock of Chickamauga. "You mean you think, sir, that they could have ex- tracted those things?" "It has been suggested to me," said Rolfe. "Why, Colonel Rolfe," was the impetuous reply, "the letters were given me by Mr. Claiborne for friends of his in town. May I be permitted to go over there this evening?" "It might be advisable, Freeman ; only, be cautious." And so once again he found himself, afoot now and alone, approaching the stepping-stone crossing of the fork, with the faint light of the Claiborne cottage twin- kling through the shrubbery not half a mile ahead, with the bright beam of larger, steadier light shining clear and strong from the Morgan homestead, a mile away to the westward, on the crest of the wooded bluff. Often as he had watched those night-lights at The Oaks, he had never seen them burn so strong. One of them, at least one that shone from an upper window overlook- ing the valley must be visible miles across the low ground and far out over the Lexington Road. It was barely eight o'clock, and yet, just as suddenly as did the light at the upper window of the Helms' the night before, that bright beam vanished before his eyes. Two minutes later a horse was splashing his way through the waters of the ford and clattering up the stony path- way, long pistol-shot from where Freeman stood a horse whose shod hoofs rang clear and sharp and me- tallic upon the limestone rock and told the keen-eared listener that a shoe was missing from the fourth. So Frances Morgan was again meeting him. The Rock of Chickamauga. 115 For a moment Freeman forgot the mission on which he came. He was recalled to it in summary fashion. The hoofbeats died away toward the Claiborne farm, and thither he followed. When within an hundred yards of the gate he was startled by a sudden sound of furious voices, low and vehement; then a struggle, a shot; then a shriek from the little porch in front, and Freeman went bounding to he knew not what. Darting through the gate, he came upon a swaying ruck of men, locked in savage, straining battle, three against one, with a wild- eyed girl clinging, frantic, to the arm of one of them, Claiborne, the father. Fiercely the young soldier struck with his revolver butt, and one assailant went down. The next instant another shot rang out, he himself received from behind a crushing blow upon the skull, and he knew no more for days. CHAPTER X. Just as Freeman had predicted, marching orders came for Rolfe and his regiment even before they thought them possible, but Manning's company marched without their first lieutenant. Just as Manning had predicted, the night had come in which Freeman was missing, and per- haps for all time. He lay with bandaged head and van- ished faculties, with a gunshot wound in the side, a sore- stricken man, in the care of Farmer Claiborne and his daughter, neither of whom could or would fully account for what had happened. All that Claiborne would ad- mit was that he was called to the door by a man in a sol- dier's overcoat and cap, who asked the way to the Illinois camp; and, when Claiborne went with him to the gate, he was suddenly confronted by a revolver in the hands of another soldier. He was quick enough to beat down the muzzle. Instantly he was grappled by three men, at least, and warned not to utter a sound. There was a furious struggle; the revolver was discharged, and he felt himself overpowered, when suddenly one man was knocked flat by Lieutenant Freeman, who was in turn felled by the butt of a gun in the hands of a fourth. It seemed as though he was shot at the same instant. Then all assailants had suddenly vanished, leaving the lieuten- ant stretched senseless on the ground. Miss Claiborne's tale was simple. She heard a scuffle, a smothered cry, a pistol-shot, and flew to her father's The Roek of Chiekamauga. 117 aid. The ruffians had him at their mercy. They were rough, bearded men ; two of the three were soldiers. Then the lieutenant leaped upon them from the gate and felled the nearmost. The next she knew another shot was fired, the lieutenant and her father both were down, and the villains scattering in the darkness. Her father soon re- vived, but the lieutenant seemed fearfully hurt. He lay like one dead. It was all Hector and the women could do to drag him in to the couch where the surgeon found him. Then they had sent to camp for aid, and Rolfe and Doctor Riggs, and others had come. They knew the rest. Riggs, with two of his hospital attendants, indeed, spent the night there ; were there when, with anxious face at early morning, Colonel Morgan arrived to express his dismay, tender his services and sympathy, and to beg that the young gentleman might be transferred to his homestead where he could have more well, at least, more room. Not once would that polished gentleman so much as intimate that better attention or treatment there awaited him. To Mr. Claiborne he was civility itself. To the daughter he was chivalric, yet rough old Riggs saw that he held himself as of superior clay, and neither father nor daughter failed to note or to resent it. Freeman could not be moved for a week, said Riggs, and might not be moved for a month. The blow was a savage one, dealt by some arm of brutal strength. The bullet wound was serious and had cost the patient a lot of blood. For three days the surgeons came thrice daily and ministered to him. For three days, too, Rolfe made frequent visits. Rawson did not envy him the duty of n8 The Rock of Chickamauga. writing to Freeman's mother, yet Rolfe showed no desire to transfer the responsibility. Rawson came and sat hours by the bedside in dumb distress, yet envying his unconscious comrade the deft and gentle ministrations of that soft-eyed, soft-voiced young nurse. Rolfe and Rawson both were there, on a sort of farewell visit, the afternoon the order came, both thinking how gentle, how tender and sympathetic a girl was here, when other voices were heard without, and Colonel Morgan, with his fair daughter on his arm, appeared at the open doorway, and then, as Rawson expressed it later, "it was just bully to see her bristle !" From having entertained sentiments of doubt, if not hostility, toward Mr. and Miss Claiborne, it was obvious that his colonel had veered to kindlier views. If these people were in correspondence with armed enemies across the line, they were, on the other hand, in close touch with their friends of the Union blue. Just one thing Claiborne asked of Rolfe when the colonel rode away, and asked it in response to the colonel's ques- tion if there were not something he could do to show his appreciation of what they were doing for his stricken lieutenant. "It isn't for my sake, but my daughter's," he said. "She is naturally unnerved by that assault. If you could leave a small guard, say, for this week, she'd feel safer." And that night there came a corporal and five men whom the surgeon said would better not attempt to march just then, and Claiborne lodged them in his roomy barn, and told them they need not have stuffed their haversacks with soldier fare. The Morgans did not repeat their visit after the regi- The Rock of Chickamauga. 119 ment marched away. Every day or two some one would ride down from The Oaks with the colonel's compliments and how was Lieutenant Freeman this morning, and in this wise did the Christmas holidays approach, and then one morning, to the amaze of the guard and the gentle nurse, there suddenly appeared, driving out from Crab Orchard, escorted by a staff-officer and some troopers, two women, in fashionable attire, such as southern and central Kentucky saw little of that solemn winter of the war; and this time Kate Claiborne's "bristles" turned to blushes, then presently to pallor. All the way from New York had they come, her helpless soldier's mother and sister, to thank her effusively for her care of him, but to take him effectually away. Three days and nights they were ceremoniously enter- tained beneath the roof of Colonel and Mrs. Morgan at The Oaks, where General Thomas himself rode over to confer with them, while army surgeons from Crab Or- chard, with ambulance and attendants, were preparing their languid patient for the move. He had recognized his mother the moment of her coming, and Elsie, the blue-eyed sister, later. They had done their best, both mother and daughter, to show their gratitude, to ingra- tiate themselves with the silent, deep-eyed girl whose place at their boy's bedside they took by turns, regardless of feeble remonstrance on his part. They strove to make her believe them her grateful friends, but, of course, not not well, how could they know aught of the Millau- dons? Vaguely they saw that, in spite of her simple gown and schoolgirl ways, she was of gentle birth and I2O The Rock of Chickamauga. breeding. Already they knew of the adventure of the deluge, and were prepared to look upon her with appre- hension, if not disapprobation. Already they had heard from officers at Lexington of Ned's devotion to Miss Morgan of The Oaks. Any other time that might have been a source of disquietude, now it brought reaef. It at least would serve to keep him from this that might be folly. A far from blissful three days did Miss Morgan find these of the Freemans' visit. She had much to vex and worry and distress her, without having to face and entertain these aliens to whom, under other circumstances, she might have been drawn instinctively. It was even seen that the two girls, Frances and Elsie, were really ready to like each other ; but there was almost inexpres- sible relief to the women of the household on the hill when the day came that saw the freighted ambulance, with its escort wagon, doctor and troopers, all on the way to the North, even though Frances Morgan hid herself and wept almost hysterically. But there was greater sor- row in one young heart down in the farmhouse by the stream. And so Ned Freeman was bundled back by slow stages to Lexington, and thence to Cincinnati, and there was petted and spoiled and made supremely miserable, despite every effort to be appreciative of the lavish mother love, for he read that Rolfe and the regiment had been marched clear over to the Big Sandy, and had had a whack at some of Humphrey Marshall's flankers, on the run for Cumberland Gap. And then, after another week of con- valescence, came thrilling news indeed news he had The Rock of Chickamauga. looked for any day when he could look or think at all news that set the North afire with rejoicing and hope news that made him mad with misery, to think he could not have been there, and so brought him to the verge of relapse news that made the detractors of "Major Slow Trot" hide their heads and bridle their tongues, for, in spite of threats and clamor, that sturdy soldier had kept calmly at his preparations until the men he needed were within striking distance, and then at last, with Buell to give the word and Thomas to execute it, the "lion chief" had led his eager regiments forward toward the Cumber- land ; camped them at Logan's Cross Roads ; and there, in pelting rain and bitter weather, had fought and won the first really victorious battle of the war, sending George Crittenden's division, in panic and dismay, full flight back to Dixie, leaving their cannon, their trains, and their manifold supplies leaving even their brave and beloved young brigadier dead upon the north bank of the Cum- berland. Zollicoffer was no more. Then up rose Ned Freeman and lead his unfilial dec- laration of independence. Back to duty would he go, though mother and sister might weep and wail, and death await him. Nothing short of shame unutterable was it, said he, that he should have missed those glorious days. With infinite dismay they let him go ; saw him headed for the blue grass counties by the second day, but fortunately, saw him not the sorrowful evening when, alone and un- attended, still only half-strong, he stood with bared head and trembling knees by the wreck and ruin of what had 122 The Rock of Chickamauga. been the Claiborne homestead. Some one had burned it to the ground. It was the evening of St. Valentine's Day, and he had brought her from Cincinnati a something to which his mother had much objected a locket and chain of beauti- ful workmanship. "Such gifts are unusual," said the mother. "So's she," said the son. His heart had been hardened against the girl he loved, the wilful maid of the auburn hair who dwelt at the house on the hill. Her reception of his nocturnal visitor, who rode the three-shoe horse ; her apparent indifference to his plight when he lay there wounded at the Claibornes', had gone far toward teaching him his devotions were in vain. On the other hand, his heart was welling over with gratitude to Kate Claiborne. Both Rolfe and Rawson had found time to write and tell him how much he owed to her ministra- tions; Rawson, at least, being mightily envious. One day, just before his departure for Cincinnati, he had casually, as it were, asked Kate Claiborne if Miss Mor- gan had ever come to see him or to inquire, and Kate Claiborne reddening first, then turning away simply shook her head. He had hired a conveyance at Crab Orchard to drive him up the west fork, and the driver, a negro, could tell him nothing reliable as to what had taken place during his absence. There had been two or three fires, he said, and some queer doings, and the cavalry were out chasing two nights ago; so there was nothing left for Freeman but to drive up to The Oaks, see Colonel Morgan, and beg:, a night's shelter; then, with the morrow, go on to The Rock of Chickamauga. 123 Somerset, where General Thomas had camped and, when weather permitted, was drilling his enthusiastic division. It must have been eight o'clock as the darky driver reined up at the entrance and, bidding him wait, Ned Freeman stiffly and wearily made his way up the broad flight of steps of the piazza, and knocked loudly at the door. A dim light shone from the hallway. There was presently a sound of shuffling footsteps and then of un- barring; but only an inch or two was the door opened, and warily came the Ethiopian challenge, "Who's dar?" The next minute it was flung open wide, and Aunt Phoebe, with much joyous acclaim, was drawing Marse Freeman within. Where were Colonel Morgan and the family? Bless de Lord, they were safe with General Thomas over at Somerset. Where were Mr. Claiborne and Miss Kate? They were safe, tuo, but it was no place for them around here now. They'd gone to Doctor Millaudon's, over at Lebanon, until Marse Claiborne could get well. Yeas, suh, Hector and Prue and she were helpin' take care of The Oaks now. Been here five days, ever since the fire, and Hector, with fellow servants from below stairs, was by this time clamoring to welcome Marse Freeman back to the land of the living, and to take the team and driver to shelter and to tote Marse Freeman's luggage to a room Marse Donald's own room when he was home Marse Donald, who hadn't been seen or heard of since long be- fore Christmas, "an' ole miss was mos' cryin' her eyes out on account of him." How desolate seemed the once hospitable old home. 124 Th e Rock of Chickamauga. How strange and shadowy the halls and rooms where, but a few weeks past, there had been mirth, music, coquetry, and laughter. Whatever his sympathies in the harsh conflict now on in dead earnest, Colonel Morgan had ever been the soul of grace and courtesy to the officers who visited his fireside, and many a caller had he. Freeman looked about him in utter loneliness and dejec- tion. He had by no means recovered strength. He was worn and wearied by the long journey. He was but par- tially refreshed or stimulated by the wine and biscuit promptly set before him, with the added assurance that a hot supper was being made ready. He was shocked at the new misfortune that had befallen the Claibornes. He was sore disappointed, though he strove to think it impersonal, that the Morgans were not here to welcome him. Luck had been dead against him, as he put it, ever since that night of the storm and flood. He had had to come round by way of Louisville to report his return to the department, and his desire to resume duty with his regiment. He had thought to see General Buell in per- son, but was turned over to a somewhat supercilious young staff-officer, a mere lieutenant like himself, who nevertheless had assumed airs of superiority, told him the general was much too busy to see him er any one but er officers from the front. If, however, he desired to make any request or er statement, there were writ- ing materials, and, "Let me see, you are the officer who met with some injuries in a fracas of some kind out there near Crab Orchard, I believe," whereat Freeman raged in spirit and turned stiffly away, meeting at the The Rock of Chickamauga. 125 door an officer in double-breasted frock and major's shoulder-straps a man with high, bald forehead and gray, keen, rolling eyes and smooth-shaven face, about whose compressed lips were many wrinkles, and whose long, bony hands were tip-touching, finger to finger, and pointing downward as he listened with bent head and averted eyes eyes that from under overhanging brows seemed to look at everything but the speaker to a man in civilian garb and a stubbly beard, who started sud- denly at sight of Freeman coming forth, and hunched up his shoulders and, like a turtle, drew in his head, while the swift flow of his words ceased instantly. Yet, though the back was all he saw of him, Freeman could have sworn he had seen that back and head before. He even turned and looked after passing them, and met the keen, sidelong glance from under the bushy brows of the smooth-faced major, while again the stubbly-bearded one faced warily the other way. Freeman had thought to be civilly received at depart- ment headquarters, if not made much of as something in the way of a hero of a stirring adventure, but the very opposite had been the case; and this, too, had disgusted and depressed him. Now it had begun to drizzle again and presently to pour, and though the old butler came with lamp and more candles, and soon had a blazing fire crackling on the hearth, and the room was snug and warm when Freeman returned to it after a hearty supper, he was still depressed and troubled. He had purposed getting speedily to bed, hopeful of a long night's rest, but, The Rock of Chickamauga. on the little desk under an overhanging stack of book- shelves were objects that set him to thinking a big French dictionary, and some smaller volumes, grammar, and verb and phrase-books. There were half-sheets of paper and penciled words and sentences. Whoever the recent occupant, he, or she, had been studying French. How the rain was beating on the roof and dripping from the overhanging eaves! How much better off, could he only realize it, was he in all this light and warmth and shelter than were he shivering in camp, or squashing round the sentry-posts as officer of the guard! He stepped to the window and threw aside the curtains to have a look out over the eastern lowlands, if anything could be seen at all. No, all was dark as Ere- bus ; not a star aloft ; not a twinkling light below. Even in the few scattered farms there seemed not a soul awake. No. One moment! Yonder was a light, just popping into view from somewhere over in the valley beyond the ruined homestead of the Claibornes. Some farm window, probably, though memory could place no farm home just there. Some - No, was it even a light? For now, all on a sudden, it had disappeared ! Five sec- onds he stood, wondering what singular illusion was this, when, suddenly as it shot from view, it again shot into sight; flared steadily five seconds; then vanished as be- fore. Then as suddenly it flashed upon Ned Freeman in all its significance. Once, twice, thrice, it blazed, then vanished; then "paused for a reply/' One moment he stood with beating heart. Then, yielding to an unaccount- He lifted the glowing lamp close to the window ; let it shine steadily five ( or ten seconds ; then sharply turned it down. Page 127 The Rock of Chickamauga. 127 able impulse; lifted the glowing lamp close to the win- dow ; let it shine steadily five or ten seconds ; then sharply turned it down; crossed to the mantel; blew out the candle, then by the flickering firelight sat and watched and waited. CHAPTER XL And "iow that the deed was done, the summons given, Ned Freeman began to feel ashamed of himself. Know- ing the result of that exchange of signals over at Liberty, and of its repetition the night of the adventure at the Claibornes', he could not doubt that the mysterious night prowler was again seeking interview with some one of Colonel Morgan's household, probably Frances herself. Who that prowler could be was as yet only a matter of conjecture. Freeman had his theories galling theories but no positive proof. In his longing to know all, he had impulsively replied to the tentative from across the val- ley, and now devoutly wished himself out of the game. But it was too late. Already, as he felt assured, the stranger was on his way, and if there were provision in this primitive code for turning welcome into warning, Freeman knew it not. If "douse the glim" meant "come," perhaps the restoration of the lamp might seem to say "beware." It was worth the trial. Speedily he whipped off the globe, but found himself balked by the chimney. It was set in some fashion strange to him. He fumbled a moment or two in vain, then stepped to the stairway-landing without and called for Phcebe. Move- ment there was below, and sound of darky voices in eager dispute, but response there was none. It would be ten minutes, he reasoned, before the vis- itor, even on a fleet horse, could cross the lowland, breast The Rock of Chickamauga. 129 the ford, and climb the winding road to the orchard-gate. There was still time to set the warning, and the single candle in his room would hardly suffice. Light there was none in the hall below stairs. The servants had doubtless locked up for the night, but Freeman thought he knew his way, and, with hand on the baluster-rail, be- gan the descent. On that lower floor, opening right and left from the broad corridor, were parlor and sitting-room at the front, dining-room and the colonel's library, office, and den at the back. A short flight of steps led from the rear of the hall to a narrower passageway, flanked by china-closets and storerooms, and leading to the kitchen and the servants' quarters at the back. Without difficulty, Freeman reached the lower hall and started for the dark passage, and now he had no rail to guide, no stick to feel for the steps he was cautiously approaching, and calling again was probably useless, for the alterca- tion was waxing louder and louder. Nelson, the butler, was laying down the law in vehement terms to an over- awed Hector, whose response was feeble as Phoebe's was vigorous. Other voices, only vaguely familiar to Freeman, were taking occasional part in the hubbub, and now some words and sentences became intelligible, and Freeman heard, halted, and considered what to do, for Nelson's ultimatum was suggestive in the last degree. * 'Tain't no 'fair o' yours, anyhow. When Miss Fanny say she want it, that's 'nother thing; but there don't 'nuther drop o' the colonel's wine go out o' this house 'til she comes back, no matter who ax foh it. I'se clone got my orders." 130 The Rock of Chickamauga. "Hit's for Marse Donald, an' he's got as good a right to it as anybody," Aunt Phoebe declared, in stout re- joinder. "Never was a day when Marse Freeman was lyin' down yahnduh you didn't come wid basket an' bot- tles, an' the colonel must 'a' know'd Marse Claiborne wouldn't tetch his wine, an' it wa'n't for cullud folks, an' there must 'a' been somebody to drink it; an' I'm tellin' you all right hyuh and now dat Marse Donald's all dat saved Marse Freeman an' de rest of us dat night." Freeman listened in amaze, but there was more to come before he could stop it. The butler again : "Marse Don- ald knows day ain't anything dese ole hands wouldn't do fo' him. It's de trash he's trainin' wid Marse Colonel 'spises. Dey ain't anything in dis house too good fo' Marse Donald 'f he'd only come hisself dat's what's killin' his fahder and mudder. He could come to youh low-down place, an' hang 'round Miss Katie when his own sister was cryin' her eyes out for a sight o' him. Dat's what's killin' the rest o' us; an' jus' how Marse Colonel could 'low you trash, you 'n' yo' Hectoh, to come hyuh and live on him arter Marse Claiborne 'cused him as he did " But the rest was drowned in a torrent of denunciation from Phoebe's lips, and that in turn hushed by vehe- ment hammering at the kitchen door. There was a sound of scurrying, of whispered words of caution and dread, a timid challenge, and ringing answer from without, that led to speedy unbarring, coupled with further admonition as to silence and caution. It could not be that the dis- tant-signaling unknown was here. Five minutes had The Rock of Chickamauga. 131 hardly elapsed. Gruff voices were at the kitchen door, as only through the kitchen windows were lights visible from without gruff voices, the stamp of hoofs, the clank of sabers, and presently a parley. A cavalry patrol, be- lated, lost in the tortuous, dripping country roads, hun- gry, wet, weary, and miles from camp. "Whose place is this?" was the demand of the sergeant in charge. "Where is Colonel Morgan?" Over with General Thomas, the butler was prompt and politic to say, and it made instant impression. Would Colonel Morgan object if they stabled their horses at the barn and slept in the hay, and couldn't they have coffee and a bite to eat ? The colonel himself, had he been there, could hardly have outdone his colored major domo in the grace and dignity of his hospitality. Again the kitchen fire was lighted. Again all was stir and bustle. While one young darky showed the wayfarers to the barn, and pulled down hay in cartloads, and others hastened to relieve the troop of their dripping ponchos, blankets, and accouterments, Nel- son himself served the sergeant and each of his three men with a nip of the colonel's Bourbon, and, under cover of all the excitement, Ned Freeman crept back to his room, considering what was now best to do. From what he could judge by the servants' revelation, Donald Mor- gan was lying somewhere in the neighborhood in need of attention, nourishment, stimulant, and his associates were repugnant to his people. Then it couldn't be Don- ald who signaled. It couldn't be Donald who was the shadowy visitor at this moment, probably, reconnoitering *lv* ^ouse. 132 The Rock of Chickamauga. Through the drip and patter of the rain, Freeman could hear the continued bustle on the lower floor, and pres- ently the ringing, hearty tones of soldier voices in the kitchen. They were scouting, it seems, for certain night- riders, who, not in uniform, were yet in sympathy with the Southern army and acting as its spies and agents, even in rear of the Federal lines. The fellows, as the sergeant was saying, had been "tracked to this neighbor- hood once or twice before." And here stood Freeman in Don Morgan's own room, by the flickering light from the fireplace, looking about him among Donald's abandoned belongings and memen- tos, pondering as to what he should do were the signals to be answered, and the night visitor to appear. It could not be Donald, however Donald, who according to Nel- son, had been "hangin' 'round Miss Kate," to the griev- ous disquietude of his cavalier father, and the neglect cf his fond mother and sister. Freeman was beginning to dislike Donald, a symptom unusual toward the brother of one's adored. It was high time for further develop- ments. If those troopers had not come just when they did, the visitor should have made his arrival known. He could hardly expect Miss Morgan to meet him outside a night like this. The voices below stairs had rather suddenly quieted. A cautious step was heard on the landing. The faint gleam of a candle appeared in the hall, and old Nelson stood apologetically at the open door. He was afraid, he said, the noise might disturb Marse Freeman, so he had told the soldiers an officer was sleeping in the house, The Rock of Chickamauga. 133 a wounded officer, "friend of General Thomas," and the effect was marked and immediate. Nelson hoped Marse Freeman was comfortable. Should he build up the fire, or help him undress ? Was anything wrong with the lamp ? Nelson would have it attended to at once. Nelson sup- posed Marse Freeman had gone to bed before this, after the long day's journey, and was surprised to find him still up. So, while a younger retainer was summoned to replen- ish the fire and relight the lamp, Nelson regaled the silent guest with further particulars as to the patrol. They were wet through and worn out, and as soon as the horses were rubbed down they were going to roll in their blankets and sleep in the kitchen. They were regulars, it seems, and the major domo would have tendered bet- ter accommodations, but the sergeant said they must be near their horses and off at dawn. Nelson would have brought down mattresses and blankets, but the sergeant said the hay would do. He had served under General Thomas in the Second Cavalry, he said, and "knew what the major liked best," so Freeman said he'd like to see the sergeant when he came back from the barn, whither the four had just gone. And then the lamp was relighted. The fire was re- stored. A big armchair was pulled in front of the fire- place for Freeman's comfort. He could read a while, he said, and then Nelson vanished, closing the door after him. Freeman at once went to the window and threw open the shade. Eastward across the low ground all was dark- ness and drizzle. Northeastward, toward the old camp- 134 The Rock of Chickamauga. ground of the regiment, a single light seemed faintly twinkling in some farm window far away, and that was all. The height on which stood The Oaks was quite commanding, and when the front windows, looking nearly north, were illuminated, they could be seen almost to Crab Orchard. "Those hell-fires," Captain Manning had called them, in his excess of zeal. Two windows on the second floor looked eastward this one of Donald's room, and that of his sister, next to the front. At night and across the valley, if only one of these happened to be illuminated, nothing short of a fixed theodolite could have told the observer whether it were his or hers. That, too, might now account for there coming no further sign from without. Freeman presently lowered the shade, threw himself into the chair, and took up the topmost of a little stack of books. "The Boy Hunters," by Captain Mayne Reid, and the fly-leaf bore the inscription, "To Donald, Christmas, 1856, from his father," and from between the leaves there slid into his lap a fresh, white envelope, closed and sealed. Turning it over, his eyes fell upon the superscription, and he knew the hand at a glance : "For Donald. Immediate" "For Donald!" "Immediate!" And yet Donald had not seen it, and the family had been gone three days. Who, then, was to be its bearer? Prompted by an impulse he could neither explain nor resist, Freeman opened wide the red cover of the story The Rock of Chickamauga. 135 he himself had read and reread, and shook the fluttering leaves. A scrap of paper floated to the floor. He picked it up, and slowly read these words: "J. B. must not come again. Father's anger and the risks are too great. We go to Somerset in morning to be gone several days. Shall try to see Don on return. He must be patient and get well, or mother's heart will break. Remember J. B. must not come again." The knock at the door startled him so that he dropped both slip and note. It was only Nelson with the ser- geant, a trim, young fellow in cavalry jacket, who sa- luted and seemed reluctant to enter. It was a moment before Freeman could rally his faculties and remember that he wished to speak to him. "I wish to drive on to Somerset in the morning, ser- geant," he said. "How are the roads ?" "Bad, sir. Our horses were dead beat when we got here. We should have been at Crab Orchard, and might have made it, if we hadn't got off on a side scout." "How was that?" "Looking up some of these jayhawkers, we call 'em in Kansas night-riders that pick off stragglers and cour- iers. There's been a lot of trouble with them. They got the general's despatches twice, and this afternoon we thought we'd found the nest of a gang of 'em." "Where away?" "Over yonder, across the valley, about three miles off. One of 'em we heard was shot and hiding in the farm- house loft " And here the candle fell from Nelson's shaking- hands, 136 The Rock of Chickamauga. and the old butler grasped at the door for support. His face was twitching ghastly as he bent to gather up the scattered fragments, for candle, snuffers, and stick had flown apart. "Get any one?" "Nothing but women and children and niggers about, sir. Warning got there first. They'd skipped in a hurry and left this much behind," and the sergeant stepped for- ward with a little flat parcel in his extended hand. "There were some other traps, but there was nothing to identify them; no papers, nor letters only this." Freeman took and curiously opened the packet. Two old-time daguerreotypes, in their square, gilt frames, but shorn of covers, were the first to catch his eye. Holding one of them so that the lamplight fell at the proper angle, he looked into the laughing face of Frances Mor- gan, and that was quite enough. There were some few letters tied with ribbon, and these two portraits the mother and sister. Steadying his voice as best he could, Freeman spoke. "I am going to join General Thomas to-morrow, and I have reason to know he will be glad to know of these. Shall I take them, or do you prefer " "Whatever the lieutenant says, sir." "I will see the you are given proper credit for your services, sergeant, and that these are delivered to the proper person. Good night." One long, meaning, miserable look old Nelson gave as he left the room to lead the sergeant below, and Lieuten- ant Freeman's finger was significantly on his lips. The Rock of Chickamauga. 137 An hour later, every sound about the homestead but the drip of rain had died away. All was darkness save that one window on the second floor. Freeman placed the lamp on the table close to the sill; then, de- liberately, at intervals of about five seconds, raised and lowered the shade three times; took from the table an envelope in which he had placed the slip and the note for Donald ; stowed the portraits in another ; threw over his shoulders the cape of his overcoat, and, candle in hand, stole down-stairs to the side door, opening to the east; unbolted it, and, leaving the candle on a chair, stepped noiselessly out into the night. The orchard, sloping to the low ground, lay but forty paces distant. He reached the fence and whistled low, three times ; then listened, breathless. In less than ten seconds came the response; then a footstep, and a dark, dripping figure stood before him. "Are you from Donald Morgan?" he demanded, his tone as steady and stern as he could make it, for his heart was jumping hard. "Tell me first who you are," was the muttered answer. "A bearer of a note for him and a message for one Jack Barbour. Do you happen to know him?" "Give me the message." "Read it yourself first chance you get, and then heed it. Give him these and tell him now we are square. That's all." And, without another word, Ned Freeman turned on his heel and went back into the house. But there was commotion with the dawn. All four, the 138 The Rock of Chickamauga. cavalry horses had disappeared. Saddles, saddle-bags, bridles, blankets, halters all were gone and Sergeant Bicknell, shaking a gauntleted fist in the face of a dazed- looking trooper, was damning him for a lout and a traitor. He had fallen asleep on post. CHAPTER XII. A photograph of Miss Frances Morgan, as she looked this frosty morn of February, 1862, would appeal to no man or woman of to-day except, perhaps, as an antique or fright, whereas, to the officers of Thomas's staff and of the First Division, she was nothing short of a tearing beauty, and was well aware of it. Such i; the influence of the fashion-plate. Yet in 1862 was published the pic- ture of two young girls, attired in Zouave jackets, flat lace collars, and balloon skirts, gazing up at the portrait of their grandmother in the costume of the days of the Directory in France, and of the administration of Wash- ington in these United States, and one of the girls was saying to the other : "Do you suppose we will look such frights as that to our granddaughters?" In the sad eyes of a devoted mother, Miss Morgan was a picture of loveliness as she reclined this keen, yet sun- shiny, morning in a comfortable old rocking-chair in front of a snapping hardwood fire, with her bronze hair rippling about her pretty, shell-like ears and softly rounded cheeks. It was parted in the middle and combed and brushed to glossy, yet wavy, smoothness to frame the really lovely face ; then gathered into some kind of a plaited knot behind, and fastened there by a tortoise-shell comb. Her deep eyes were downcast, their long lashes sweeping the slightly flushed cheeks ; the toe of a dainty slipper was impatiently tapping the footstool, and giving 140 The Rocic of Chickamauga. premonitory symptoms of a possible stamp. The bosom of her silken gown was in a state of unrest, and her slen- der, white fingers were beating impatient tattoo, for Miss Fan had been receiving a maternal lecture, by no means uncalled for or undeserved, and the subject thereof was Edgar Freeman. They had spent three days, in the hospitable old fashion of Kentucky, visiting friends at Somerset, in order that Colonel Morgan and his gentle wife might have occa- sional conference with General Thomas, for they were sorely anxious about their only son. Then, before re- turning to The Oaks, they had driven over to Liberty again for a few days' sojourn with Mrs. Helm, and here, with a pass from the division commander in his pocket, Lieutenant Freeman had found them, and had sought straightway an interview with the soft-eyed damsel whom he had not seen since December, and against whom his heart had been for a time, at least, unavailingly steeled. Freeman's uniform and equipments were new and handsome, but Freeman himself was not looking his best. The blue eyes were filled with apprehension and anxiety. The clear-cut, soldierly, young face was clouded with care. Frances Morgan had seen him come driving in from the Somerset Road, and had fled to the upper re- gions, to the room whence the signal had gone to the op- posite belt of woods that dark December night. There had been an occasional tilt between them during that previous visit verbal passages at arms in which her wilful ladyship had all the better of her masculine antag- onist. She let him wait now full half an hour, talking The Rock of Chickamauga. 141 with her mother and Mrs. Helm. She only went down when practically sent down, and her welcome to Mr. Freeman was characteristic : "On your way to Lebanon, I suppose!" "I certainly hope to get there presently. My first duty, however," with immense dignity, "was here; to thank your mother for all her goodness to mine and to my sister." "I'm sure it was only a pleasure. You left them well, I hope, and in New York?" "In Cincinnati. I went no farther. Good nursing brought me round in short order." "Round to make the round of the nurses?" she que- ried, with feminine skill. "I have certainly messages for Miss Claiborne from them," he responded, with much stateliness, "and some- thing more tangible from myself," he added daringly. Then it pleased his saturnine mood to do a little devil- ment of his own. "I wish I had had you to help me choose. Elsie would not go." Miss Morgan bridled. "How should / know what would please Miss Claiborne? Was this all you wished to see me about, Mr. Freeman? Because, since you are going over to Lebanon, I'd like much to send a letter or two, if you don't mind; and, of course, I mustn't detain you." It was not all he wished to see her about by any man- ner of means, but in so teasing and wilful a mood he preferred not to see her at all. "Take all the time you wish for your letters," he an- 142 The Rock of Chickamauga. swered, with a smoldering fire in each blue eye. "There are people here whom I much wish to see, and I'll call for the letters when I'm ready to go, to-morrow or next day, perhaps." And for once he went victorious, leaving her in possession of the field at the expense of the loss of her temper. Devoutly she wished she had not been so intentionally "nasty," to use her own thoughts, about Kate Claiborne. It had betrayed jealousy, and had given him a distinct advantage. She was in a pet when her mother found her, and the gentle lecture had followed. Even when consumed with anxiety about her son, the good lady could not lose sight of the love-affair of her daughter, and Freeman stock had risen vastly in ma- ternal eyes since the visit of Freeman's mother and sister. Was it wise to treat so cavalierly a cavalier so obvi- ously well connected? And, as that proved of little account, and Miss Morgan seemed obdurate and unmoved, womanlike, the mother called on her unseen, unexpected reserves. "Especially," said she, "a man who has risked so much to shield your own brother." And this brought Miss Morgan to her feet with flash- ing eyes and a demand to be told forthwith. "How risked? What where how did he ever meet Donald?" Then with sudden intuition: "Then Don- ald's been hanging round that girl again?" "That girl, as you call her, never encouraged him. I'll do her that justice, at least. One reason your father was reconciled to Don's leaving Kentucky was that it might put an end to that affair. He knows now what he The Rock of Chickamauga. 143 did not dream then that she is as well connected as well as we are. Even Mr. Freeman's people could see that." "Even Mr. Freeman's ! I'd like to know wherein their superiority lies ! But what is this about Donald ? When and how did they meet ? You know, and I know, Donald was at the Claiborne place at a perilous time, and then but what has he ever done for Donald?" "It is something your father forbids my speaking of, even to him again. He only heard of it yesterday when Nelson came over with the horses. He is utterly un- strung by the news. Between his sense of duty to Gen- eral Thomas and his dread of consequences to Donald, he is simply unnerved to-day. He did not sleep a wink last night. He supposed that Donald and Jack were in Tennessee. He had heard nothing of his daring to re- turn, and of what he was doing. He didn't know, and I didn't dare tell your father, of Donald's injury and his being in hiding; but the very night Mr. Freeman spent at The Oaks the cavalry were there looking for Donald and Jack had even searched the Grossman place that afternoon, and Nelson told your father that Mr. Freeman himself warned Jack Barbour to get Donald away, and showed him how to get horses." Frances Morgan's eyes were dilating. "Do you mean that Mr. Freeman spent a night at our house?" "Yes, in Donald's room, and signaled Jack Barbour to come. Jack himself told Nelson." With her hands pressed to her white temples, the girl 144 The Rock of Chickamauga. stood a moment, speechless, staring at her mother, then turned and flung herself from the room. In bitter mood Ned Freeman had left the house and sought certain cronies in the near-by camp. With division headquarters at Somerset, the victorious troops were dis- tributed in the neighborhood, fitting out, as swiftly as limited military conditions would permit, for some im- pending move. All was stir and excitement. It was known that, to the west of the Army of the Ohio, a strong column had ascended the Cumberland, and was in- vesting Fort Donelson just across the line in Tennessee. Who was this man Grant from Illinois? Even Rolfe's regiment, the only Illinois command in the neighborhood of Somerset, could tell nothing about him. All Rolfe him- self knew was that he was a West Pointer who had been in the Mexican War and hard luck. The governor made him a colonel because he was the only man about Springfield who had any knowledge of army ways, and the President named him brigadier, no one in the First Division knew why ; but he had been "doing things" ever since. It was told in the camps that Mitchell, with the Third Division, was ordered forward to busy the enemy at Bowling Green, and keep him from sending aid to Buckner at Donelson. It was known that Nelson, with the Fourth Division, was at Camp Wicklifre, under orders to move at once, and it had leaked out that they were to go to reenforce Grant ; but here at Somerset sat and waited the man who had won the only decisive and satisfactory victory. East, west, or south, nothing had jret given the enemy such a blow as Thomas dealt at Mill The Rock of Chickamauga. 145 Springs. In spite of which, barring guarded words of thanks, there came nothing from Buell at Louisville, or Stanton at Washington, to express confidence in his lead- ership or extend further opportunity for action. Something was surely amiss. Patient, serene, subordi- nate, the division commander went about his duties; ri- ding from camp to camp; noting the discipline, drills, equipment, and general condition of his men; keeping a watchful eye on everything at the front, but paying no heed to gossip or rumor from the rear; and those were days when camps were full of both. One of the first things Thomas's staff-officers learned was Thomas's dis- taste for camp gossip. He shrank from it almost as he did from certain camp-fire stories. Never a second time did a narrator, no matter what his rank or wit, attempt one in the general's presence. There, he and Grant were alike. But even as Freeman strolled this day into the camp of the th Indiana, he came upon a little group of officers near the colonel's tent, and heard again a rumor that had already given him cause for thought and worry. They were seated about a camp-fire, their big cape coats bundled up about their ears, with the canteen passing freely, as was the jovial custom of the day; and a tall lieutenant-colonel, an enthusiastic admirer of the division commander, was on his feet and telling of a visit he had paid him late one night the week following the battle. "It was eleven o'clock, but I thought the news I brought of sufficient importance to rout him out, and they went and waked him, and he called me into his tent, and 146 The Rock of Chickamauga. sat up in bed, and, by gad, sir, there was old 'Slow Trot* in a nightshirt. Yes, sir, and with sheets and pillow- cases. I'd been sleeping in my boots, and when he saw the look in my face he just sort of smiled and said : Tve gone regularly to bed every night since the battle,' said he. 'I, too, used to sleep in my clothes before that, but Mill Springs taught me no number of the enemy could drive our pickets in so fast but that I would have plenty of time to dress.' Then he thanked me for coming in with my news, though I found out next day he knew all about it beforehand." "And not until Mill Springs," said the colonel com- manding, evidently another sturdy supporter, "did e'er a one of us see him in a brigadier-general's uniform. Be- fore it's six months old it will be a major-general's, if he gets his rights. How's that, major?" There was just a bit of Irish mischief, as even Freeman could see, in the tone of the questioner, as the colonel turned sharply on a huddled form, a little to his left an officer whose big eyes and nose were the only facial feature visible whose fingers, extended and meeting at the tips, were pointing downward over his bony knees ; and the instant he began his reply Freeman recognized in the speaker the officer with the Jesuitical cast of countenance whom he had seen about the camp on west fork, and at headquarters at Louisville. What was old Cutler doing here? "How's that?" repeated Cutler slowly and reflectively. "Thomas a major-general? Well, before they come to him, you know, there's Buell back here at Louisville, and there's that queer fellow Grant, over at Donelson. The Rock of Chickamauga. 147 There's Charley Smith, and John Pope, and others I might name, and when you come down to it what's Thomas done? He didn't attack and beat Crittenden, as he was expected to do. He went out and waited, and then Crittenden attacked him. Thomas's men were fat, well fed, well clothed, and strong. They had slept com- fortably all night. The rebs were lean, cold, and hungry. They had been marching all night long in the wet and mud, and were beaten out when they began the battle. You fellows didn't half have to fight. They were good as whipped before you hit them. It was the weather, the conditions, their own bad generalship, that did the busi- ness ; not Thomas not even Thomas's division. So I see no major-generalship in sight for that, even if there weren't other things." "Well, now, what other things ?" demanded the colonel, his Celtic choler rising. "You've been hinting about other things, and sneering at Thomas, every time we meet, and I'm damned if it don't gall me and my officers, too " "One moment," said Cutler imperturbably, with up- lifted hand. "Don't mistake my regrets for sneers. No one wishes these things were otherwise more than do I, but Thomas has only himself to thank or blame. He per- sists in maintaining friendly relations with people of known secession proclivities. They've just sent a divis- ion commander of the Army of the Potomac to a cell at Fort Lafayette for less than what I hear of Thomas." "Who's that?" was the instant demand. "Charles P. Stone, of the regular army," was the placid reply, "and I was there when he was commanding 148 The Rock of Chickamauga. at Edward's Ferry, and heard then of his interchange of letters and messages and civilities with two old friends of Thomas's on the other side Shanks Evans and Jenifer. The worst Stone's enemies could say was that he sent his compliments to Evans ; but think of what it led to ! Now, if Stanton sends a general to the lockup for sending his compliments to the opposing commander, what do you suppose he'd say or do if he could see what we've seen and known of Thomas ? Gentlemen, these are times when we can't be too careful about our associations our ac- tions." "How about our words, Major Cutler?" The question came, clean-cut and sharp. The voice was young, and there was the tremor of wrath and right- eous indignation, but it rang out bold and brave and true, and Cutler, in the dea4 silence that followed, turned slowly and deliberately, and allowed his great eyes to sweep the questioner slowly from head to foot. Finally he spoke. "You, I take it, are Lieutenant Freeman, of Rolfe's regiment?" "Of Colonel Rolfe's regiment, and General Thomas's division," was the sturdy answer, "and a man who be- lieves in both of them and doesn't take kindly to your remarks." "Young gentlemen of your impulsive temperament," began the major slowly, "would be wise to avoid contro- versy, especially when they themselves have much to explain." "Any time my colonel, or my general, wants me to ex- " Young gentlemen of your impulsive temperament would be wise to avoid controversy, especially when they themselves have much to explain." Page 148 The Rock of Chickamauga. 149 plain, he has only to say so ; but to you, at least, I am not answerable. On the contrary," and here the foreign edu- cation began to tell, "I hold you answerable to me for your insinuation." "Gintlemen, gintlemen !" began the colonel, rising has- tily to his feet. "This will never do " But Cutler never quit his camp-chair. Impressively he uplifted his hand, as though to invoke silence and atten- tion. "It is because the general does not make you explain that it appears that he does not want you to," said he, addressing Freeman. "It is that, among other things, I have to regret in Thomas. As for yourself, an officer who is suspected, if not discredited, in his own regiment, you should know better than to attempt to pose as the champion of General Thomas and make a scene here." "There's just one answer to be made to that, Major Cutler," was the furious rejoinder, for Cutler's calm had exasperated the younger soldier. "You insinuate you dare not say that General Thomas is disloyal. You dare to say I am discredited and suspected in my regi- ment/' He stood squarely confronting the slouching, seated, half-muffled form, his gauntlet in his hand. Then, with quick and sudden movement, he slashed the heavy cuff across the elder's pallid face, which went crimson on the instant. "That is my answer!" and Freeman stepped back to give his adversary room. But Cutler never rose. In the intense thrill and ex- citement of the moment, two or three of the group had sprung to their feet, tiie colonel himself interposing be- 150 The Rock of Chickamauga. tween the angering pair, but he need have taken no pre- caution. "Colonel Sullivan, and gentlemen," said Cutler, "you are witnesses to what has taken place. This transfers the matter from the personal to the official, and so it must be treated. No, pray do not interfere. There shall be no further trouble." But a burst of cheering from over on the roadway side, a sound as of rush and excitement, had brought others hurrying from their tents. Every man of the little group was on his feet and aquiver with excitement ; every man but Cutler. A clatter of hoofs turned all eyes to the coming horseman a staff-officer covered with spume and mud, and he was madly swinging his cap. "Donelson's fallen ! Buckner's surrendered !" he cried. "Biggest victory yet! And we're all ordered to Nash- ville!" And so, while Frances Morgan would have welcomed the return of her messenger to Lebanon, he came not. The whole division was going ; not Ned Freeman alone going and leaving Central Kentucky to the care of the Home Guards; going and leaving the elder Morgans to sore anxiety because of the missing, wayward son ; going and leaving Frances Morgan in deep distress of mind, for Colonel Rolfe, riding over from the marching col- umn to say adieu, and asked as to the whereabouts of Lieutenant Freeman, replied in grave embarrassment and obvious concern, that Lieutenant Freeman could not come with him; in fact, he was not with the regiment just now. He had been summoned elsewhere on mat- The Rock of Chickamauga. 151 ters of importance, and Colonel "Ruddy" cut short his adieu, and vaulted into the saddle, and not until later in the evening was Colonel Morgan able to hear anything more definite. Lieutenant Freeman, he gravely informed his wife and daughter, with his eyes on the latter 's face, had been sent, under telegraphic orders from General Buell, to Louisville, in close arrest. Then Fanny Morgan fled to her room. CHAPTER XIII. March had come and gone. The First Division, most of the Army of the Ohio with it, had moved to Nashville and beyond. With its hold on the Tennessee loosened by the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson, the army of Sid- ney Johnston had retired to northern Mississippi. Then it was that those famous raiders and riders, Forrest and Morgan, began their phenomenal exploits in the rear of the Union lines, and played havoc with our communica- tions in Kentucky. Incidentally, they paid domiciliary visits to families previously referred to in these pages, and, whether welcome or not, certain cavalry officers in Confederate gray spent more than one day and night at The Oaks; sipped the priceless Madeira, and sampled, with possibly greater appreciation, the native Bourbon with which the veteran had regaled them. It was told later in Confederate camps that Colonel Morgan the guest drank to Colonel Morgan the host; it was de- clared at Union headquarters that Colonel Morgan the host drank' to Colonel Morgan the guest. It was known beyond peradventure that certain adventurous young Kentuckians of prominent families, hitherto home-keep- ing youths, had been carried away by the infectious en- thusiasm of these their cavalier kindred from beyond the Cumberland, and had 'listed with the Southern guidons for good and all. It was rumored that Messrs. Jack Barbour and Donald Morgan, whose whereabouts The Rock of Chickamauga. 153 had been a mystery, rode foremost among the raiders, consummate guides, as a matter of course. They knew every bridle-path in mid-Kentucky. April had come and gone. The shock of Shiloh was a thing of the past. The Army of the Tennessee, camping in fancied security among the woods about Pittsburg, had been attacked in force by Johnston's legions and doubled in upon itself, where in the gathering dusk the guns of the navy raked the charging . gray lines and stemmed the tide, where the leading divisions of the Army of the Ohio, hastened forward in spite of assurance that there was no need for haste, crossed to the support of their recently envied neighbors, and helped them to the revenge of the following day. Shiloh taught the North a needed lesson, and cost the South a noble man Sidney Johnston died at the head of his division, leading, late in what had promised to be a victorious day, a final -and hopeless attack. And, just as that strange, mephistophelean major had predicted, the first major-generals had been named from the army for the volunteers, and Thomas, he who fought and won the first battle of any consequence, was not of the number. Four statesmen, prominent in politics, and presumably, therefore, Well suited to lead the professional soldiers in the field, had early been chosen by the admin- istration to head its list of chieftains Dix, Banks, But- ler, and Morgan. Two veteran soldiers, Hunter and Hitchcock, had been advanced to similar grade. No one of the six had yet done anything in high command, but six valuable berths were filled to the exclusion of six pos- 154 The Rock of Chickamauga. sibly active and valuable soldiers. Now, the time had come when the immense numbers of fighting men in the field demanded in corresponding numbers generals of suitable rank, and, as was to be expected and as was richly deserved, the victor of Fort Donelson was the first to be named. Brigadier-general U. S. Grant became major-general, to date from February i6th, and no one heard from the lips of George H. Thomas, who had won the earlier battle of Mill Springs, one word of complaint. His time would surely come. But, meantime, to the amaze of the First Division, other promotions were speedily announced, and, while their leader sat in silence, forbidding in his presence words of censure or criticism, the officers and men who had learned to love their lionlike chief, were loud in their comments. First came Irvin McDowell, major- general from the I4th of March. "What had he done but get walloped at Bull Run?" said they. Next, Am- brose E. Burnside, from March i8th. "What on earth had he done but share McDowell's misfortune?" Then, from March 2ist, came an astonishing list, and now, whenever sure their soldier-leader stood not within hear- ing, his devoted followers turned loose and swore. No less than eight brigadiers had been named major-gen- erals, but Mill Springs had been ignored it could never have been forgotten. Pope, Curtis, Sigel, McClernand, Charles F. Smith, and Lew Wallace all appointed over Thomas to double-starred rank and command, and still Thomas would say nothing. But f here were men who did talk and would talk, even The Rock of Chickamauga. 155 among West Pointers; men like "Ruddy'* Rolfe, for in- stance; and "Ruddy" had already a following in the Army of the Ohio, for he had licked into shape one of the finest regiments in the service, and, from having been a most unpopular colonel at the start, had won the solid respect of every officer under him, even those who damned him secretly for his discipline. "Ruddy" had his enemies the strong and fearless commander is never without them and it wasn't long before "Ruddy's" words were being distorted at Buell's headquarters. That Buell himself, commander and disciplinarian of the Army of the Ohio, should have been given the double stars, was a matter of course. No soldier could find fault with that. Thomas was almost the first to extend his con- gratulations. But the talebearers who carried to Buell the remarks of Colonel Rolfe, upon the ignoring of Thomas and the preferment over him of certain of the crop of March 2ist, deftly made those remarks apply to all, and "Don Carlos," as his smarting soldiers would sometimes refer to their most soldierly commander, was really hurt. Buell looked upon Rolfe as one of his very best colonels, as he looked upon Thomas as his very best gen- eral, and to be told that Rolfe had sneered at him and set him at naught cut that stern commander to the heart. "Perhaps," suggested his informant suddenly, uplifting his great eyes and rolling them upon Buell's clear-cut face, "it might be well if I were to see Rolfe and sound him as to how much of this came from Thomas," and the pressing finger-tips, down-pointed, came up for the 156 The Rock of Chickamauga. moment, with the swift, furtive glance, and then went down, for Buell's answer chilled him. None the less did Major Cutler consider himself authorized at a future date, within the month that followed Shiloh, to say a warning word to that hot-headed young colonel, and in this wise was it done: "You do yourself injustice, Rolfe, in fathering such statements. Moreover, you exalt Thomas in a way his deeds do not warrant, unless you wish to heap coals of fire on his head for euchring you out of your chance at Mill Springs." "What the devil do you mean?" was the indignant query. "Fact/' said Cutler, with a roll of his eyes that finally focused ort the boot-toes. "You thought Buell sent you on that wild-goose chase over to the Gap, after the rebs got fairly away. It was Thomas himself who urged it. You see, he had favorites about him he had to remember Fry, Hoskins, Manson, McCook, Steedman don't you see? Wait till the fiext crop of brigadiers is gath- ered " "Do you meah, Major Cutler, that General Thomas asked that I be detached and sent over to the Big Sandy?" "You Were sent at General Thomas's personal request," was the uncompromising answer. "As for generalship, judge for yourself. Who of Buell's division commanders deserved his gratitude for energy in the rush to save the Army of the Tennessee ? Who got to Shiloh ? That rip- roaring, old sailor, Nelson, first. Then came McCook; The Rock of Chickamauga. 157 then even Crittenden. Who didn't get there ? Old 'Slow Trot/ " There was more than one way of damning a loyal and subordinate officer, a possible rival or a personal foe, and in this mode of warfare was Cutler past master. Rolfe turned away from him in unmitigated disgust, hut the fang had sunk deep, and the poison was in, full flow as he turned and went forth into the brooding silence of the night. To think that Thomas, the leader he most venerated, should have sought to get rid of him and his regiment on the eve of battle, in order that the credit and reward might go to men who, being in touch with politicians, could better back the general's ambition! Rolfe could hardly believe it, yet Cutler swore it was so. Cutler had even quoted a paragraph, verbatim, from Thomas's letter : "For these reasons, therefore, I recommend that Colonel Rolfe, with his regiment, be sent as suggested. It will be a valuable experience," and when Rolfe asked what were those reasons, the inscrutable Cutler replied: "General Buell did not see fit to show them to me, but you can imagine." All of which was strictly true. In point of fact, General Buell had not seen fit to show Major Cutler any portion of that letter, or many another that came to him. It was Cutler's way to wander in among the clerks' and junior officers' desks, to pick up a letter or paper as though fully acquainted with its con- tents, to even suggest changes in the diction of reports, replies, and endorsements. Cutler, with less real business of his own at headquarters, was apparently the busiest 158 The Rock of Chickamauga. man about it. But not until after Shiloh after, in fact, the reorganization that followed did Cutler begin to sus- pect that Buell would be glad to be rid of him. It was then that Major Cutler began to appear fre- quently at the headquarters of Major-general Henry W. Halleck, U. S. A., one of the three officers suddenly appointed to that exalted grade in the regular service, they having quit that service for civil life many years before. It seemed odd to the little and long-suffering army of the old days that its highest offices should be tendered to those who had turned their backs upon it. But in this wise, or rather way, came McClellan, Fre- mont, and Halleck > into "the regulars" again, and thus were they given command over their former superiors in both the regulars and volunteers. To Cutler, as we have seen, all things were fair in war. He had known of Hal- leck in his California days, and, now that Halleck had come to lead the whole Army of the West, absorbing into one the commands of Grant, Buell, and Pope, redis- tributing divisions, brigades, and staff, it occurred to Cut- ler as not unlikely that Halleck might be glad of the services in his military family of an officer who could give him reliable information as to everybody in the Army of the Ohio from General Buell down. There was reason to believe General Halleck could not know much about it. But away they had gone after Sidney Johnston's sore- hearted people, bereft of their brilliant leader and the hoped-for fruits of victory. And now, "Old Brains," as the soldiers saw fit to call their new generalissimo, had The Rock of Chickamauga. 159 broken up the separate, so-called, "armies" and merged them all into one grand array, with wings and center, reserves and cavalry, and now at last the double stars had come to Thomas, and he appeared at the head of no less than five divisions, his own, and four from the old Army of the Tennessee, the right wing of the forces in the southwestern field; and, though it was not for long, there was rejoicing among the men who had learned to know and love him. It was soon after this time, too, that Major Cutler ap- peared one day with silver leaves instead of the dull and tarnished gold upon his shoulder-straps; Washington, at the suggestion of "Old Brains," having rewarded this faithful soldier-servitor with promotion to the grade of lieutenant-colonel. Corinth finally fell. The Army of the South broke up into detachments along the extended front. Once again the comrades of Mexican War bat- tery days and of later California experiences were thrown in strange juxtaposition. "A little more grape, Captain Bragg," was the word at Buena Vista. Bragg had stepped into Sidney Johnston's shoes and was speeding along the south bank of the Tennessee for Chattanooga. Buell, with most of his old men, started swiftly along the north bank, in hopes of heading him, giving to Thomas, just as before, the duty of bringing up the rear ; and Thomas, silent and subordinate as ever, if not over- pleased, was serving dutifully, faithfully, loyally, little thinking that other and later views and impressions as to his capacity and character had gone to Washington, where that rasping, irritating, suspicious war secretary, 160 The Rock of Chickamauga. Stanton, sat in state and ruled things with an iron hand. The summer of '62 had come. A new idol of the Eastern Army was tottering-; a new adviser from the Western Army sat in judgment on his every move. "Old Brains" had been sumrnoned to the war department as general-in-chief of all the forces, and, having differed with Buell on a dozen points in the campaign of the West, began now to differ with every other leader within his reach. The air was full of trouble in Virginia, for, despite the illimitable patience of the President, McClel- Jan and the administration were utterly at odds. The summer was barely on the wane when it dawned on Washington that, both east and west, the armies of the South had started for the North. Lee was marching for the Potomac -and possibly beyond ; Bragg was marching on the Cumberland. On August 3Oth, in Virginia, the Union Army was backing across Bull Run, with Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson in hot pursuit. On August 3Oth, in Tennessee, old "Slow Trot" had captured Bragg's de- spatch announcing that his advance had turned Cumber- land Gap and was already in Kentucky. And then came woful days at Washington and tre- mendous stir both east and west. A fortnight more and the blue and the gray were north of the Potomac and maneuvering for the grapple of Antietam. In that same fortnight, the blue and the gray, Buell and Bragg, were across the Cumberland and racing for Louisville, Thomas, as the most trusted subordinate, being left with a strong force, at all hazards to hold Nashville. Already The Rock of Chickamauga. 161 then there was faith in Thomas's ability to hold. Another week, and the Army of the Potomac in a death-grapple, held its veteran antagonist on the heights of Sharpsburg, and then turned the gray tide back into Virginia. In that same week, Bragg, after beating Buell in the race, thought best to avoid meeting him in battle. Thomas had been sent for, had personally posted the divisions for ac- tion, and Bragg, knowing his former first lieutenant far better than did the war department, drew away east- ward, leaving open the road to terror-stricken Louisville. Thither Buell pushed his columns. Then he turned and confronted his antagonist, and then received the amazing order from "Old Brains" relieving him from, and order- ing Thomas to assume, the command. And Ned Freeman, held in arrest for forty days^^wait- ing orders full one hundred and forty, sick at heart long weeks of the time, imploring, urging, demanding action in his case, if charges had been preferred, and being "stood off," as the soldiers say, on one claim or another, swung his cap in air and shouted with glee that now at last he would get speedy justice ; that now, he said, there being a man, not a soulless, heartless machine in control, he could hope for restoration to his sword and regiment. But Freeman was impulsive as he was unlucky. Had he known his father's old friend a little better, he would have known exactly what to expect. Other generals would have been, and others were, quick to avail them- selves of the misfortune or wrongs of their superiors, se- cretly eager to accept advancement thus to be gained. But not so George H. Thomas- He knew his imme- 1 62 The Rock of Chickamauga. diate commander was right and his innumerable censors wrong. He refused to profit by Buell's unmerited dis- grace. Prompt, sure, and unmistakable flashed his pro- test to Washington. Twenty-four hours there was sus- pense, and then "revoke." Once again, cold, calm, me- thodical, "Don Carlos" rode at the head of the army he had almost made, but with old "Slow Trot," sturdy and unafraid, announced in orders as second in command. There was no time then to go to the bottom facts of a subaltern's distress. Just as many days and months a general of the Army of the Potomac had beaten his prison-bars at Fort Lafayette, pleading, praying, implor- ing trial on the charges brought against him, if charges of any kind there were, and the iron secretary let him plead and clamor in vain. At last, in mid-August, with- out explanation or redress, General Charles P. Stone was given his liberty, but neither orders nor command. Somewhat in the same way, in mid-October, there came to Lieutenant Freeman relief from further attendance at Louisville; and, without the faintest explanation as to the cause of his summary arrest and long detention, click- ing impatient heels before strange, unsympathizing, and all-unknowing staff officials at the rear, our disgusted, unheroic hero once more started for the front in search of his old regiment, and found it fresh from the fight at Perryville, camped as part of Crittenden's division, not five hundred yards from where he last had seen it, on the east bank of the west fork, within view of Crab Or- chard and visiting distance of The Oaks. CHAPTER XIV. "Ruddy" Rolfe was a much-disgusted man. "This regiment's getting too damned popular," was the ex- planation of Lieutenant and Adjutant Allis. "No gen- eral officer's staff is complete without somebody from the th Illinois." Six of its subalterns and three of its captains were detailed either as aides-de-camp, assis- tant inspector-general, ordnance officer, or something of that kind, and for long months Lieutenant Freeman had been reported "absent, awaiting trial," and no man could surely say for what offense. All manner of rumors had been rife. When first the regiment had been astounded by the story of his arrest and shipment to Louisville, everybody supposed it was for that most sensational af- front to Major Cutler in the presence of several officers he had dared to slap the face of his superior but before many days came Freeman's letter begging his colonel to do something to get him out of durance vile. It tran- spired that no charges alleging attack upon Cutler were anywhere on file, and in the course of the marching on to Corinth, over to Chattanooga, and back to Kentucky, his comrades were told that he was "wanted" at Louisville because of reports to the effect that he had been holding correspondence with the enemy, and was involved in the mysterious making-off with the horses of a cavalry patrol at the Morgan place. Yet Freeman had strenuously denied the story, and 164 The Rock of Chickamauga. challenged any man to bring proofs. It was all, he de- clared, a piece of persecution Cutler's doing Cutler dared not bring him to trial for slapping Cutler's face, for then Cutler's words that led to the deed would as- suredly be told under oath, and Cutler's usefulness under Buell would as assuredly be gone. It was with no regret the officers of the former Army of the Ohio learned that Colonel Cutler had been transferred to the Army of the Tennessee ; the th Illinois, indeed, were glad to hear it if for no other reason than the fact that a veteran, yet little respected, soldier was transferred at the same time from its rolls one Private James O'Reilly, of Captain Manning's company, and, as had at last been learned, a former driver in Captain Bragg's famous light battery of Buena Vista fame. "Good riddance !" said Manning. "He's done no day of duty with the company since the time old Cutler took him riding over to Morgans', and then got him detailed as orderly. The men say he was hanging around Crab Orchard in citizen's dress for weeks; that he was nothing better than a spy of some kind doing dirty work for Cutler among the homes of Southern families thereabouts. Now, what's he going to make of him ?" So far as officially known, Private O'Reilly had been transferred from Company "C," th Illinois, to the general service, U. S. A., attached to department head- quarters at Louisville; but Colonel Rolfe had satisfied himself there was something behind it all something affecting even the good name and fame of General Thomas himself the grave, just, dignified soldier The Rock of Chickamauga. 165 against whom his heart had been hardened by tales that Rolfe was now beginning to believe were told for that very purpose. For months the colonel had hardly had occasion to see or speak to General Thomas. As wing commander, the latter had "lost touch" ; as second in command, there was even less occasion for Rolfe to meet him ; but, when Ned Freeman came bursting in upon the regiment, after the long separation, pale, worn, worried looking, but full of vehement hate and fury against the cold, scheming staff- officer, and damning and denouncing him and all his works, for very shame that he should have been so in- fluenced, Rolfe shrank from the subject. It was his duty, he said, to acquaint Freeman with the fact that Cutler was by no means the only man to suspect him of inter- course with Southern sympathizers, and. to fear for him because of his connection with that mysterious affair at the Claibornes', and that still more mysterious affair of the horses at The Oaks. Stoutly Ned Freeman had re- plied that he knew no more than did his colonel of what was at the bottom of the affray which he had interrupted at the Claibornes'. His theory, he said, was that strag- glers had assaulted the father, or perhaps been assaulted by him for insult to his daughter. As for correspondence, or dealing, with Southern sympathizers, Freeman swore that outside of that absurd challenge from the lieutenant of Zouaves, he had had but one communication with, or from, any man in the Confederate service, and General Thomas knew all about that. There were family mat- ters involved, and he would not speak of them. If Gen- 1 66 The Rock of Chickamauga. eral Thomas found no fault with what he had done, there was no reason why Colonel Rolfe should blame. More than this, Freeman would not say. Yet Freeman had greatly, gravely changed. From be- ing a boyish, big-hearted, impulsive, somewhat harum- scarum fellow, as the regiment knew him at the start, he had become fitful, nervous, irritable perhaps, and some- times moody. What was stranger in the eyes of Colonel Rolfe, was that, for five days following his return to the regiment, he sought no opportunity to visit The Oaks. On that fifth day, The Oaks, in the person of the aging colonel, came to visit him. With the exquisite punctilio of the courtly Virginian, Colonel Morgan had first paid his respects to the regi- mental commander, whom he had entertained at dinner but the day before, and had presently expressed his desire to see Lieutenant Freeman. As luck would have it, Free- man was not at his tent. They met suddenly at haphazard, and every man who saw the meeting, saw that both men, the elder and the youth, were visibly moved to the verge of embarrassment. Colonel Morgan's voice shook, his fine face quivered, his eyes filled, as he greeted his young friend in Union blue, and Freeman for the mo- ment could hardly speak at all. Men were so consid- erate as to look away when this was noticed, and to let them confer together. They walked out toward the creek, slowly and with bowed heads and downcast eyes. They were gone as much as twenty minutes, and then Freeman escorted his visitor to the old carryall he knew so well. The world a while had revolved about it when The Rock of Chickamauga. 167 Fanny Morgan sat therein, but he had hardly asked for her. "Now, the mother would have come herself," they heard the colonel say to Freeman, at parting, "but I per- suaded her not to try it. She is not too strong after after so much anxiety, but she made me her messenger in begging that you should come over and break bread with us again. Can it not be to-morrow?" "I don't see how I can, sir," began the junior, in em- barrassment ; but Rolf e cut him short with : "I'll see that he does, Colonel Morgan," which seemed to settle it. And so once again Mr. Freeman found himself fording the creek, and, after a few minutes' meditation about the charred ruins of the old Claiborne place, slowly breasting the winding road that led through the timber and up to the heights whereon stood The Oaks. Not since early springtime had he set eyes on Frances Morgan ; not once had he heard from her, nor did he seek a meeting now. An aging, anxious woman, far from strong, had begged of him that he would come to see her Donald Morgan's mother that she might thank him for kindness extended to her boy, and, though Freeman disclaimed any credit, and declared to Colonel Morgan that he owed more to Donald than did Donald to him, the mother's wish pre- vailed. The regiment might move at any moment, and before it left the neighborhood Mrs. Morgan longed to see him once again. Did he wish to see Frances Morgan? His heart an- swered yes, with every bit of it in the answer. Yet that heart was angered against her; so much angered that 1 68 The Rock of Chickamauga. he wished her to know it, and to ask him why. If what he believed or what he told himself of her was true, he was a fool, a moth, to approach her again. If she really cared for this handsome, daring, young Kentuckian, her brother's chum, Jack Barbour, then Freeman frankly called himself an ass. And had he not grave reason to believe she cared for him ? Rumor long had linked their names. Barbour was of excellent family, Don's devoted friend. There was that to start with. Then came that romantic mid- night meeting, preceded by the exchange of signals at the Helms', the coming through the darkness of her cava- lier, the sound of her stifled sobbing probably in his arms. Then followed that later episode at the home- place, the finding of the letter, the warning to "J. B./' and finally the signal through the down-pouring rain, the coming of the searching cavalry searching for Confed- erate scouts, Southern sympathizers in the garb of civil- ians, lurking somewhere within our lines; the sergeant's story pointing clearly to Donald and to Donald's friend. Then the meeting in the orchard, and, the message. Believing as he did, then, that neither Barbour nor Donald had yet taken up arms against the Union, and might yet be prevented from so doing; believing, as he had right to believe, that Donald's difference with his father was the cause of his alienation from home and kin- dred ; believing, as he did, that Donald had been his res- cuer the night of that blackguardly business at Clai- bornes', and that now Donald lay crippled and in hiding, Freeman had placed in the hands of the man he believed The Rock of Chickamauga. 169 to be his successful rival the letters he had found, the warning slip of paper, and with them a little bag of gold coin, a dozen treasured eagles his mother had given him to be used in emergency, and the emergency had come, though not to him, but to Fanny Morgan's exiled brother. Quixotic it was, perilous to his own name, also, and, as it turned out, perilous to the Union cause. Barbour had been quick to profit by the situation, prompt to sum- mon the aid of two or three young, would-be Confed- erates, and before the dawn of day had stolen back to The Oaks and away with the troopers' horses. There was no longer question then as to whether it was to be the blue or the gray. Within twenty-four hours he and his little party had threaded devious bridle-paths, made their way to the Cumberland, and so on to Tennessee, taking Donald Morgan with them, leaving no word and only one half-shod horse Don's former mount by way of thanks or explanation. Old Hector alone had met Bar- bour on his second coming, and, if that young gentleman felt gratitude of any kind toward his reputed rival, he took an odd way of showing it. The substance of the story he told Hector, if once proved, could have sent Ned Freeman dso to Fort Lafayette; the mere shadow of it had been enough to send him to the rear in pre- sumable disgrace. And now, for the time at least, these venturesome young bloods were eliminated from the problem. There were two officers in the Southern cavalry who had come riding northward after Shiloh, whom Colonel Morgan 170 The Rock of Chickamauga. refused to entertain within his gates Lieutenants Don- ald Morgan and John Marshall Barbour. "Both," said he, "have broken faith, and one of them has taken ungen- tlemanly advantage of a chivalric enemy." No wonder the mother's face was worn and sad, the aging father's older and grayer. No wonder Ned Free- man went, reluctant and embarrassed. He might yet have found means to avoid the meeting with the mother, had not his heart so longed for another look at her daughter. He tried to tell himself it was because he wished to avoid Frances Morgan that he shrank from going, but that boyish heart gave him the lie direct. He would have been sorely disappointed had he not seen her, whether she cared for Jack Barbour or not. But for over an hour he did not see her. It was Mrs. Morgan's wish to have a long talk with Donald's pre- server, as she at first persisted in calling him. She looked bewildered when he disclaimed the title and declared him- self Donald's debtor to an extent exceeding the help and hints he had sent him. Neither she nor Freeman made the faintest reference to the gold. Very possibly Bar- bour had failed to mention that. She had pictured her brave boy as in peril and in hiding, the victim of the machinations of that major with the mephistophelean face and ways, he who had come prodding and poking and questioning all the servants about the place, and set- ting that horrid man of his to plying people with liquor. She knew, she said, that Donald would never have dis- obeyed his father and taken up arms against the United States, if he had not been driven to it by these persecu- The Rock of Chickamauga. 171 tions. She knew nothing of the affray at Claibornes'. If Donald were really wounded, it must have been by some of the major's men in his escape from their brutal hands. She had really supposed that Mr. Freeman alone had planned and executed their escape, Jack Barbour, of course, helping. She was obviously disappointed to hear from his lips that such was not the case, and, finding that he had not seen Donald, and really knew next to nothing about him, the mother's heart cooled perceptibly. She had planned and executed their escape, Jack Barbour, of least, in correspondence. That such conduct would have been next to treasonable did not appeal to her. How could one be guilty of any wrong in striving to befriend her boy? And so the hour passed heavily for both. It was a re- lief when the colonel came and bore him away to lunch- eon, and the sight of Fanny Morgan, seated in her mother's place, and as she rose and looked up in his face and gave him her slim, white hand, his resolution oozed out at his finger-tips, for in the lovely, uplifted eyes he read pain at his altered mien and formal manner. Pride and resentment, if present in any force, had been routed by the sight of his pallor mute evidence of suffering. And so it pleased her to be shyly sweet to him all through the simple meal, nor did her manner vanish with her father when, with his own hand, he bore to the gentle invalid such dainties as they could then command. Hec- tor, in shining, service-worn black, and immaculate white neck-cloth, followed in his master's train, bearing the big, 17 2 The Rock of Chickamauga. cut-glass decanter ; and Ned Freeman, with beating heart, found himself at last alone with the girl whose beauty had enthralled him. "Shall we go into the parlor?" she faltered. "You haven't been too neighborly of late." He followed dumbly. He had no answer ready. In- deed, he had determined, if there were talk of any kind, that he would question. He meant to know before leav- ing her again whether or no Mr. Jack Barbour held the key to her heart ; he meant, that is, if straightforward, soldier approaches could prevail. He was no adept in the art of dissimulation. She knew when she looked into his somber, young face just what it could not hide, and the woman in her prompted her to test forthwith. She led the way to the piano, a veteran of the Chicker- ing type, much favored in the 6o's, but, like other vet- erans, a bit the worse for wear. She seated herself upon the old-fashioned, revolving stool, with one slippered foot just touching the pedals, with her slender fingers flitting idly over the keys ; and, sitting there, she let her soft eyes lift themselves through their long lashes to his eager gaze, as he leaned one elbow on the stack of sheet- music to her left, his head upon his hand, and his blue, but clouded, eyes fixed full upon her flushing face. She was trying to be arch and unembarrassed, but it was far from a success. She knew what he was thinking. She wondered what he would say. And presently it came : "You say I have not been neighborly of late. Frankly, The Rock of Chlckamauga. 173 I meant to keep away. I was far too frequent a visitor last winter, and I was in the way last spring." The long lashes, golden-brown, far deeper in shade than her sunny hair, swept her soft cheeks. There was something of the Fanny of the year agone in the prompt and unmistakable toss of her bonny head : "Who's way?" "Mr. Jack Barbour's," was the uncompromising answer. And now she looked him full in the face, calmly, de- liberately : "I have not seen or spoken to Mr. Barbour since last November." He drew back, recoiling from her. She dared to trifle with him, then ; to sully her lips with a lie like that. His blue eyes flashed with sudden anger; his elbow dislodged the stack of music and sent it fluttering to the floor. Both forms bent at the same instant; both heads bobbed and came together with a bang. He had merely swooped to recover the wreckage caused by his impetuous start. She had quickly bent, almost double, to seize a half-sheet that fluttered from the pile of music to the floor. She laughed, almost hysterically, at the sudden and stunning contact. He set his teeth and swore to himself, for, face uppermost, lay the first of the songs, "II Bacio," with this inscription in the upper corner: "Frances Morgan, from J. M. B., Christmas, 1861." "Sent it, I suppose, by the same messenger you sig- naled to that last night at the Helms'; in other words, himself." 174 Th e Hock of Chickamauga. For one moment the color left her face; then came back with a rush. "Mr. Freeman," said Frances Morgan, "that is insult !" His answer was to take one long look into her blazing eyes ; then he turned in silence and left the house. CHAPTER XV. Solemn days had come again to the seasoned "Army of the Ohio." However much it had chafea against the cold, stern disciplinarian at its head, it learned at Shiloh the value of his training, for the admirable order and precision in its ranks were the observed of all observers, winning even reluctant praise from its rivals of the Ten- nessee. Then had come their further hardening in the long tramp to Chattanooga, and back to Louisville. They were in splendid trim at Perryville, and could have given Bragg a trouncing had the commander himself, the cen- ter and right, been made aware of what was going on at the far left, where storming McCook was trying, all un- aided, to beat off a whole army. Even as matters stood, Bragg was glad to get away and hie him back to the Ten- nessee, with his own army hot in its criticism, and Ken- tucky furious at his slurs. "The State wasn't worth fighting for," he declared, as he left it for the last time, leaving Buell in control of the ground, but not, alas! of the situation. That had become vested in Halleck. He had fretted Buell after Shiloh. He had ordered him hither and yon. He had pursued him with orders after quitting the West and going to Washington. He had rebuked him for not fighting when Bragg couldn't be got to fight. He had criticized him as slow, lame, reluctant, when Thomas knew he was burning with energy and brimful of fight. 176 The Rock of Chickamauga. He had relieved him from command in the heart of the campaign and restored him only when Thomas refused to take his place. And now he mapped for him an im- possible move against an ephemeral enemy two hundred mountain-miles to the east, and when Buell said it couldn't be done, as possibly Halleck expected, sent or- ders relieving him for good and for all, and, knowing full well that Thomas, second in command, seconded his commander's views, went utterly outside the Army of the Ohio to find it a commander, and sent to it a brave, scientific leader, yet one they knew nothing of. "Over- slaughed" again, but subordinate and loyal as ever, more loyal than many a man never accused of disloyalty, Thomas lowered his sword in salute to Rosecrans, and in the new Department and Army of the Cumberland, took station as head of the center, with McCook and Critten- den commanding the wings. This was in late October, the second year of the war. Already the government at Washington had begun to question its own wisdom in this method of selection. The happiest results in the army in Virginia had not followed the transfer to the East of Pope and Halleck from the Army of the West. Now, the Army of the Cumberland was bidden to follow this new commander from an al- most alien department. If it for the moment faltered, it was never known. The example of the senior among its generals banished thought of that propensity for speaking his mind that is the birthright of the out-and-out Ameri- can. Under Buell the Army of the Ohio had learned dis- cipline. Under Thomas, it doubly learned loyalty, and The Rock of Chickamauga. 177 now, as the Army of the Cumberland, it set forth obe- diently, yet reservedly, under the soldier they were des- tined so soon to greet with lavish enthusiasm, to hail de- lightedly as "Old Rosy." Speedily the reorganization went on, and the army marched again for Nashville, with Bragg and his regath- ering clans somewhere in middle Tennessee. And now came new affiliations for " Ruddy" Rolfe and the th Illinois, new associations for Lieutenant Edgar Freeman. Brigaded with other regiments of their own State, the senior colonel in command, 'The Children of Israel" found themselves after a time in a division of apprecia- tive yet hard-headed volunteer soldiers from their own Stale, commanded by one Brigadier-general John M. Palmer, "a war Democrat, sir," whose principal griev- ance up to date had been that he had no chance to hit a fellow of his own size on the other side. Rosecrans smiled when told of it, and said he thought General Pal- mer's time was coming. Not much did the new division commander know of, or care for, drill or parade ; not much, for that matter, did the old colonel commanding the brigade. The show figure of the division, albeit one of its junior colonels, was undoubtedly "Ruddy" Rolfe, and his was its "dandy" regiment. But not as yet had the th had to bear the test of serious battle. It had missed Mill Springs, as has been told ; it was too far to the right at Perryville to be heavily engaged, and there were those who thought it safe to twit it with senseless queries as to whether the feather they showed in their first fight would be as white as their iyB The Rock of Chickamauga. gloves. That it was unsafe was demonstrated in the most unhappy way the December night they got the news that their popular division commander had been nomi- nated to the double stars, and a number of officers gath- ered at General Palmer's headquarters to extend con- gratulations. It so happened that Allis, regimental adjutant, was down with a fever, and that Ned Freeman was acting in his stead. "You've steadied so much this year, I think you can stand it," was what Rolfe said to his tall sub- altern, in making the appointment. He wondered what on earth could have happened to make that once exu- berant lad so preternaturally grave. He knew that the long arrest, and most unjust accusations, had done very much to sober him, but Freeman seemed abnormally sol- emn much of the time, and could neither be cheered nor laughed out of it. Moreover, laughing was injudicious treatment, as Captain Manning had discovered. Rolfe shrewdly suspected that the course of Freeman's wooing had been far from smooth, and was prone to credit to Fanny Morgan's coquetry much of his acting adjutant's solemnity. Now, to the surprise of his brother officers, Freeman had thrown himself into his new duties with vim quite equal to the expected ease and grace. There had come to him from that fond mother in the East a very beautiful silken sash, of a somewhat brighter hue than the dull purplish crimson worn by most officers when the sash was worn at all. "It sort o' killed the rest of his outfit," said Rawson, for Freeman sent back to Louisville for a The Rock of Chickamauga. 179 new belt and sword, and the evening the officers gathered at Palmer's marquee, Rolfe and his adjutant were con- spicuous by the fact that each wore his side-arms, and was handsomely girthed in the regulation equipments. There was some smiling, and later, in a staff-officer's tent, more smiling of another kind a colloquialism of the day for a drink being a "smile" and under the in- fluence of Kentucky corn- juice a certain few became satirical, and an envious fellow colonel saw fit to trifle with the auburn-haired young chief of "The Children of Israel." It was a hapless inspiration. Rolfe had been properly shocked six months before when told his subaltern had slapped the face of a staff-officer. To-night he had taken one very mild sip when they drank the general's health, but that was all. In the modified revelry that followed he had had no- part. He was standing outside in the frosty moonlight as the party broke up, and the orderlies were coming up with the horses, Rolfe's handsome chest- nut sorrel among the foremost, and then it was that the colonel of the "Cornstalks" stepped forward. "Look at Rolfe," he shouted, "red head, red horse, red ribbon why, you'd think him the most sanguinary cuss in the whole division! Only kind of red he's seen since the war began !" He had forgotten Bull Run and the fighting light bat- tery. Two officers tried to hush the idiot, but he was big, burly, and in evil mood when Rolfe turned and faced him. "Twice before, to-night, Colonel Bostwick," said he, 180 The Rock of Chickamauga. "you have been offensively personal. Now, I'll hear your apology." "Apology? Apollozhy! You go to hell!" The blow that followed sent Bostwick down like a log; so quick, so sudden, that no man had time to interpose; so stunning that the surgeons had their hands full for the next half-hour. "He or any friend of his knows where to find me," said Rolfe, as he mounted and rode away, Freeman exultingly following. The general, busy within the tent with his departing guests, saw nothing of it, and not until morning did he hear. Then Thomas himself came riding by and beckoned the division commander to a quiet word aside. It was one of his ways, and a capital way, that of seeing and conferring with his juniors as he rode their lines. Other commanders, many of them, adopted the plan of sitting in state at headquarters and requiring their subordinates to report in person and there to listen to oracular words. But not so Thomas. Slow of movement he might be, but he moved. He rode from camp to camp, saw for himself the condition of his men, and spoke on the spot to their officers, and this wintry morning he had stopped to speak to Palmer. How he heard of it no man at the moment could say, but heard of it he had. "You are acquainted with most of your Illinois officers," said he, "and best know how Colonel Bostwick is regarded at home. There was a fracas last night which your staff very naturally have tried to keep from your knowledge. You will find, I think, that Colonel Bostwick was the aggressor through- Thfe Rock of Chickamaiiga. 181 oiit, and that he brolight punishment on himself. If the rriatter cortles officially to the knowledge of General Rosfc- crans, Colonel Bostwick will probably get more. Suppose you suggest to him that he would be wise to accept the situation as it is." And Bostwick, who had been' led away to his canvas home by night, arid a brace of staff-officers, thundering denunciations of Rolfe arid his determination to have his heart's blood ill the morning, woke with his head "hi a slitig," as the doctor expressed it, and a craving for ven- geance and cool drink. It Was still, at lengthening inter- vals, a custom to settle such affairs as Shields and Lincoln Would once have settled theirs, feostwick was for despatching seconds to Colonel Rolfe, in the camp of the other brigade, btit while he was formulating, for his reluctant witnesses, the demand for satisfaction, there came orders for the colonel with his regiment to proceed at once on reconnaissance. "It will cool him off quicker than anything I krtdw of,'* said Palmer as he sent them. Bostwick had lost much of his craving for personal com- bat before he got back, and more of it went when his adjutant learned that Rolfe was a masterly- shot with the newfangled "Colt's navy." The last of it vanished with return from reconnaissance, and a story awaiting him that arrest and court-martial were contemplated because of tils drunken misbehavior at the general's reception. He sent toord to Rolfe that he'd "square with him later when there might riot be so many generals to back him," and Rolfe knew Well he had won another enemy, One both secret and venomous. The Kocic of Chickamauga. Not a word did Thomas say or send to Colonel "Ruddy." He left matters in the hands of the division commander and went his way, but later that day in riding the lines he came upon Freeman, busily coaching a class of non-commissioned officers in the new Casey tactics, and, sitting in saddle, as was his wont, erect and firm, his head well up and back, his boot-toes well in toward his charger's shoulders, the general stopped to listen. Freeman and his big class arose and faced their honored leader until bidden to resume, and when the brief lecture was over the general called the subaltern aside. "I'm glad to see you so useful and zealous," said he. "Twice I've thought of assigning you to staff duty, but it would have harmed you in the regiment. After your long absence it was best you should win your way among them. Later I shall need to see you again, early in the new year, perhaps. My regards to Colonel Rolfe, and to your mother when you write." And then slowly, thoughtfully, observantly the general rode away, a single orderly jogging as his retinue, and Freeman followed him with his eyes, wondering why it was that Rolfe held aloof and avoided him, as avoid he certainly did. It came in a day or two. They had set forth for Nash- ville and were trudging southeastward along the pike. There was soldier music in the air, the occasional boom of distant gun, the spatter of frequent musketry far to the front. They were pushing Bragg's outposts back on the line, and with every hour drawing nearer to the bank, of the icy little river where it was rumored the Con- The Rock of Chickamauga. 183 federates were in force and waiting their coming. To Rolfe's impatient soul it was galling to be held in column so far from the spirited work in advance, but the brigade commander, a stolid, phlegmatic, elderly colonel, bade him bide his time, there'd be righting enough for all hands in a day or two. It was getting to be the fag-end of December. The home folk had been anxiously observ- ing Christmas and watching the news from the front. The Army of the Cumberland had hardly observed Christmas at all. It was suffering to get at its old antag- onist, Bragg, and at last, one dark wintry evening, the men from Illinois found themselves plodding into posi- tion in a comparatively open field, with clumps of cedars to their right and rear, and squads of pioneer troops and engineers hacking at the banks of a half-flooding, half- freezing stream, flowing away in many a meander to- ward the northwest, and presently they were bidden to halt and were aligned facing southeast, with the turnpike and the railway running diagonally across their front, side by side, yet gradually edging away from each other as they approached the roofs and spires of a country town some three miles away. Barely a short mile distant stood a little bunch of low heights, with cedars clinging to their rocky sides, and fresh-turned earth scarring and seaming the flanks. Between the bivouac and the river a line of skirmishers, in light-blue overcoats, well forward in the low ground, were popping occasionally at certain other dots of skirmishers along the opposite bank, and there, said bearded General Negley, whose division had halted just a few hundred yards farther on there, on those 184 The Rock of Chickamauga. low heights, was posted a whole division in Confederate gray, with black-mouthed cannon peering out from among the cedars, and a big brigade of cavalry behind them in support, and that, said the general, was the right of the rebel line and the rest of it, crossing to our side of the river, extended southward, as far as you could see, and farther, perhaps, for whenever McCook poked a battalion in search, it stirred up a brigade. "This time Bragg can't get away without a fight," said Negley to his brother division commander, and Palmer, looking along the line of his silent men, rather thought so too. He would not have thrown up so many earthworks if he had merely stopped over for a day or so. The night came down with hundreds of little cook-fires, starting southward through the cedars, and sparkling away to the north, far beyond the ford and slashing where the engineers had been at work, far beyond the right of the rebel lines, and far south, said a staff-officer who rode in two hours later and swapped greeting with Rolfe "far south of McCook's right. It's some foxy trick of old Rosy's," said he, "to make Bragg think we're that big." Then he added a word Freeman heard with rejoicing and Rolfe with clouding brow : "I s'pose you know you're to be under Thomas?" "How so?" asked the colonel quickly. "We're part of the left wing yet." "You were," was the answer, "but to-morrow you'll be -luckier." Rolfe stood moodily by the little camp-fire, following the aide with his eyes Until he was lost in the darkness. The Rock of Chickamauga. 185 Then he turned to Freeman, and Freeman could stand it no longer. "I wish you'd tell me what it is you don't like in General Thomas/' he bluntly said. "I wish you'd tell me what General Thomas doesn't like in me/' was the blunt rejoinder. "He told me he thought most highly of you," said Freeman stoutly. "Then why did he euchre me out of the chance at Mill Springs? He advised General Buell to send me to the Big Sandy. Colonel Cutler saw the letter." "That's more than you did, colonel," was the sturdy answer, "and all you know of the letter is what that fellow told you. There's a lie somewhere, and I know where to place it!" CHAPTER XVI. That was a solemn night to many a man in Palmer's division. The word had gone whispering along from file to file that they were to breakfast at dawn and be ready for business very soon thereafter. All night long the sparks went whirling aloft from the watch-fires, fresh fed with cedar boughs. All night long the axes rang in the cedar thickets, where lanes were being hewed for the bat- teries, that the guns might be hauled to their assigned positions lanes none too broad for guns handled lei- surely and in safety in rear of the interposing infantry, and far too narrow and crooked for guns that might be coming back in disorderly haste, with fire-flashing lines behind them. All night long some men and many offi- cers sat up or moved restlessly about, while others lay sleepless in their blankets, thinking God alone could say of what the solemn thoughts that come to men when the hostile line is lying but rifle-shot away, and the shock of battle must be coming with the dread to-morrow. At midnight, as Freeman dozed, with his feet to the fire and his cap pulled down over his eyes, a low voice was heard close at hand. "Is Colonel Rolfe sleeping?" Rolfe himself was up in an instant to say no. A little knot of horsemen dismounted. Two shadowy forms came forward into the firelight. Freeman knew the leader at a glance, rolled out of his blanket, and stumbled to his feet. It was Rosecrans, with a single aide. The Rock of Chickamauga. 187 "General Palmer was sleeping," said he to Rolfe, "and you were the next man I thought of. They tell me up to your right, among Sheridan's people, that the pickets could distinctly hear sounds as of guns and troops being marched southward. It simply cannot be that Bragg is making off. Have your outposts heard anything?" "Not a sound, general. We hold the ground out there in front of the Cowen place, but General Sheridan's lines are closer, very much so. Those are strong works they have thrown up both sides of the railway. It doesn't look as though they would quit. There may be another explanation." "That they are massing opposite our right?" queried the general, with a quick, keen glance. "Yes, I had thought of that, and I don't much regret it. You see it weakens their right and center just where our attack is to fall. Van Cleve and Wood cross as soon as it is light. There is only one division over there to bar the way. They should be whirling the rebs right into Murfreesboro by seven o'clock, and then we've got the rest of the line enfiladed and outflanked." Rolfe listened in respectful silence. Something he had heard, much earlier in the evening, of McCook's unpro- tected line, extending southward through the cedars. No cavalry "feeling" out beyond him. No division facing southward in case the overlapping lines in gray should suddenly take the initiative, as those surprising graybacks had been known to do, and come sweeping and swinging round our right, just a little before we began stirring things at their opposite flank. Something Rolfe had The Rock of Chickarnaiiga'. heard of comment or criticism as to McCobk's position and of McCook's overconfidence. McCook had been asked if he didn't think he otight to face more to the south, and if there was anything McCook hated it was to be asked if he ought not to be doing somethirig other than what he was doing. McCook had his three fine divisions lining a low ridge, overlooking some low ground across which were the Confederate works, barely five hundred yards intervening, just the place to smash them if they straddled those works and came out againsi him, which was all very true provided they came at hirii only in that way, and at the appointed time. Hold therri ? Of course he could hold them keep them busy as the devil in a blizzard, and Rosecrans, Ohio-borri himself knowing full well the fighting blood of the McCooks; and fearing to wound the dauntless but sensitive spirit of his right wing commander, had left nlatters in his hands: The right would take care of itself, said McCook (It was the left that tried to take care of itself at Perryville, much to its cost) , and as the blow was to be dealt from the left; from Crittenden's wing, thither the commafidef betodk himself that all might start fair in the morfilhg. All day long of the thirtieth Bragg had been expectirig attack in force. All day long of the thirtieth Rosecrans had been busy getting his brigades up from the rear and in position at the front. If Bragg wished to attack; the time to try it was before the Army of the Cumberland was "good and ready." As he had let the opportunity pass, it was fair to assume, said certain of the Union generals, that he preferred to await attack. Therefore, The Rock of Chickamaua. they might rest on their arms until Old Rosy called them up with orders to go in. But there were certain other generals, born in Virginia and the West, who knew Bragg, or had studied Southern methods, and these were uneasy. The orders to the corps commanders, given at o P. M., were clear and spirited, the very thing to insure victory, provided Bragg stayed just where he was. Surely two such divisions, and leaders, as Van Cleve and Wood ought to whip one out of that position. Then the halteries could crown the abandoned heights, enfilade the length of the Confederate line to the south, and the rest was easy. Breakfast at dawn and battle at seven, were Old Rosy's final orders. Breakfast by dark and pitch in at dawn, were Bragg's. And so it happened as the gray light of the last day of a dismal year came stealing through the cedars, and the men of Palmer's division clustered about their cook-fires, there was laughter at the words of a courier riding by from the right : "Sheri- dan's fellows have been standing to arms for the last two hours," but the merriment ceased when a staff-officer told the colonel that Thomas had been up and anxiously watching ever since four o'clock. It was nearing broad daylight, and word came from down the stream to the left that the head of Van Cleve's column was just at the ford, when afar to the right, to the south, there arose sudden sound of fray. "Damn it!" cried Palmer. "That's McCook all over. He's pitching in by himself and spoiling the plan of battle !" Rolfe, occupied with his holster at the moment, an- swered by swinging quickly into saddle and reining up 190 The Rock of Chickamauga. beside his division commander. "Listen a moment," said he, and, all about them, armed and bearded men stood watching their leaders with eager eyes and lending at- tentive ears. From scattered shots to crashing volley the change was almost immediate; then came the boom of artillery ; then heavier volleying. For a moment longer Rolfe sat, a silent listener, his face eloquent of keen excitement. There is something thrilling in the first sound of combat something that sets the pulse to sudden throb and kindles the latent fire in the soldier's eyes. But this this sound told a tale un- locked for and alarming, and along the forming line of "thinking bayonets" the effect was marked. Seven o'clock was the hour set, and our extreme left the place for the opening chorus. What could it mean that, too early by half an hour and far to the opposite flank, the attack had begun ? "McCook all over," repeated Palmer, in the excitement and wrath of the moment. Rolfe shook his head. "Look there !" said he. Instinctively, at sound of the distant crashing, the men clustered about the cook-fires had hurriedly finished their steaming, 'soldier coffee ; slung the battered tin mugs, and started for the line of stacked muskets, never needing the word "fall in"; but this movement, too, had ceased, and, one group after another, by dozens, the soldiery stopped in their tracks, turned, and gazed toward the rear. There on a little rise among the cedars, barely one hundred yards back of the line, a horseman had shot into view and stood revealed against the gray western sky. The Rock of Chickamauga. 191 Motionless, bareheaded, he sat, his strong, stalwart form erect and high in saddle, his head high held, the fine, yet massive features absolutely calm, yet commanding. "The lion at gaze/' thought Rolfe, as he studied him, horse and rider both intent upon those ominous sounds of battle at the south. Magnificent was the pose of the charger, his head in air, his ears erect, his nostrils snuffing the breeze. Magnificent in its utter unconsciousness was the pose of the rider, as, hat in hand, he sat there, a living monument on its cedar-bristling pedestal, deaf to all about him, listening only to that rumbling thunder of coming storm. It was Thomas himself, alone, yet in the midst of his devoted men, the smoke from their camp-fires rising like incense about him, the cynosure of every soldier eye within range, the strong heart on whom reposed the trust of the commanding general, the stanch leader in whom was vested the guidance and control of the center of the Union lines. One moment more he waited, motionless, listening, and then, borne on the breeze, rising and falling like the wolf chorus of the far frontier, the crash of the volleying was swelled by a new sound, the exultant, unmistakable yell of the martial sons of the Southland, the war-cry of char- ging battalions in gray. "McCook all over," indeed! More like it was all over with McCook. And Thomas read the sign aright. A quick gesture, and another horseman spurred up to his side, marked the direction of the gauntleted hand, now pointing northeast- ward to the fords, then whirled his horse about and shot out of sight through the trees. It was Thomas sending 192 The Rock of Chickamauga. instant word to Rosecrans that his move was too late. Before a single trigger had snapped at the left, by divi- sion front, one could tell now by the volume of sound, Bragg had turned our unwary right and was coming crashing through the brakes, overwhelming all before him. "McCook all over," indeed! So far from attack- ing, "all by himself," as Palmer in his petulant wrath would have it, all by himself McCook was meeting again, as he had at Perryville, the force and fury of Bragg's vicious and tremendous onset. "Hold on three hours ?" That might have been no im- possible task with three such divisions as those of John- son, Davis, and Sheridan, had the Southerners boldly as- sailed them in front, but who had looked for this? Cer- tainly not Johnson, farthest to the right, for he himself was a mile or more away in the woods, communing with Willich, thinking more of breakfast than business. Every- body understood the battle was to begin at the left, and that would leave the right division the last to go in. Here, close at hand, standing to horse, were cavalry, but no general at the right had thought to send forth a squad- ron or two with the earliest dawn, to ride out southward across the Franklin Road and explore the thickets, just to see if anything might be coming. Close at hand, too, were guns and caissons in plenty, but no horses to draw them, for they had been led off to the branch for water. Close at hand Kirk's little brigade had bivouacked for the night, a mile in rear of McCook's division, and Kirk was prompt to leap forward into line and oppose his almost untried \ olunteers, fronting south, to the successive waves The Rock of Chickamauga. 193 in gray that came bursting into view among the cedars. "Hold your ground and give 'em hell !" were the grim words to his men, as he sent staff-officers on the gallop to Willich's brigade in search of support. Here were crouching the men of the West Ohio, Indiana, Illinois all eager to aid the threatened lines, but their stern, Ger- man-schooled brigadier had ridden aside to confer with the division commander. There was none left to order advance, and Kirk died like a fighting lion, with the wreck of his brigade about him as he fell, and Willich, storm- ing full tilt back to his lines, was hurled from his stricken horse and into the arms of the charging grays. With eleven guns stalled behind them in the thickets, with over a thousand of its officers and men shot down in the desperate struggle to stem the tide, Johnson's division, at the extreme right, crimbled to fragments and came drifting northward in rear of the comrade lines. The wreck of the right wing was begun. Then, stricken front, flank, and rear, the next division, Davis's, had to let go and change front to the south. Then at last the storm burst on Sheridan, ahd now came check to the sweep of the tide. Over the shattered remnants out of the west, the rear, of these unbroken and un- daunted lines, the triumphant hosts of Pat Cleburne and McCann were trampling in wild career, but when the men of Cheatham and Withers sprang forward, exultant, to the attack they were met with cn.shing repulse. At the right of Sheridan's line, along the low ridge, lay the stanch brigade of a fighting leader, former colonel of the Thirtj - third Ohio, friend, fellow soldier, and comrade of both his 194 The Rock of Chickamauga. division and corps commander, all three of them "Buck- eyes." Almost under the eye of McCook, raging, and reckless of his own life, in vain effort to check the rout of his wing, almost within sound of Sheridan's voice, gal- lant Sill led his men in furious charge that drove the fronting Confederates back to their woods, but left him shot dead in the daring essay. It was check for the mo- ment, but even such troops as Sheridan's could not long hold against double their weight in assaulting lines. He, too, as had Davis before him, had to fall back fighting to a southward change of front, and now, though far out- flanked at the west, where McCann's red battle-flags were sweeping almost unopposed clear around to the Union rear, what was left of McCook's sturdy corps backed sullenly through the dull green of the cedars, fighting stubbornly to the last. And then came the turn of the center. Then at last came relief from the left. Refusing at first to believe there was serious trouble at the distant right, Rosecrans sat in saddle with Crittenden near the fords, watching with kindling eye the spirited bearing of the men of Van Cleve as, in succession, his battalions came swinging to the bank, smiling up at "Old Rosy" as they passed him by. The sound of battle afar to the south had by no means disturbed him. "It will divert their attention from the real point of attack," said he, "and McCook is there to hold them." Even when Thomas's messenger came he held not his hand; he held to his purpose. "Thomas would have it there was mischief in that quarter, and he Clings to his theory. If things were going wrong we The Rock of Chickamauga. 195 would have heard from McCopk," was his reasoning. Even when messengers came hurrying from McCook, saying that he was heavily engaged and in need of as- sistance, Rosecrans did not begin to realize the extent of the trouble. McCook did not say that Johnson had been whipped from the field, and that Davis and Sheridan were overwhelmed. For nearly two hours the com- mander clung to his faith and his plans,, then came dis- illusion and reality. It was somewhere toward half-past eight o'clock of that dull wintry morning that the wreck of Kirk's and Willich's commands came drifting through the timber back of where big-voiced Rousseau, held in reserve in rear of the center, was clamoring for a chance to deploy to the south and help stem the assault. In line of battle, still facing east, Rolfe and his regiment stood watching the opposing earthworks, wondering when the gray occu- pants would come leaping over and striding across the intervening half-mile of low lands. It seemed the lot of Palmer's division to have to wait attack from the east, which was wisely avoided, and to hear all the uproar from the south and southwest without bearing a hand 'to put stop to it. Between Rolfe and the elderly colonel commanding the brigade, there was little accord. Rolfe was full of fire, action, and vim; the senior colonel was slow and phlegmatic. With the other brigade, where, though with crumpled front, Bostwick still rode a brag- gart, Rolfe had little to do. Rolfe's division commander much liked him, but being "politic when he wasn't mad," avoided over-manifestation of his liking. This day, how- 196 The Rock of Chickamauga. ever, for the life of him, Palmer could not keep away from Rolfe. When he wasn't riding after Thomas, who was silently, warily moving about, watching develop- ments, Palmer was riding down to ask Rolfe what he thought of it and what they ought to be doing. "We're doing as ordered," said Rolfe. "We're to push in to attack as soon as Van Cleve opens on yonder height, and he hasn't opened. It's getting to be my belief he isn't going to open that this whole business must be straight- ened out, and yonder comes the man to do it." At last the conviction had fastened on Rosecrans, far to the left, that he was needed far to the right. Turning like a bull at bay, McCook was fighting terribly now, brave, butt-headed as ever, and still being borne back by force of numbers. The fiercest battle of the day was raging where Sheridan and Negley, side by side, were fronting the rush of the gray charging columns, four splendid brigades, the flower of the corps of Polk and Hardee. Three times they dashed upon the blue lines only to be driven back, but at last the ammunition of Sheridan's men began to fail, even the cartridges of the dead were not enough, and the fourth charge told, and now came the turn of the center now came "Old Rosy" himself, the incarnation of fire and fight in face of over- whelming disaster. Bleeding from the scratch of a frag- ment of shell, hat in hand, and shouting himself hoarse, he dashed from group to group, urging, steadying, in- spiriting, until even in their chagrin and dismay, men by scores came to cheer him and then to line up and take heart again. The Rock of Chickamauga. 197 Rolfe had noted him, as with the staff trailing after, the general spurred swiftly along the rear of the line, and Palmer's battalions took up and carried on to the right the cheer that began in the th Illinois. It wasn't a minute thereafter that, swaying in saddle, and with ashen face, a young officer came spurring up from the right rear and reined in a foaming horse alongside the division commander. "General Thomas directs " he began, with uplifted voice, for the clamor through the timber to the south was appalling. "General Thomas " he repeated feebly, and got no further. With the blood gushing from his mouth, he sank, swooning, into Freeman's arms, and a surgeon sprang to aid him. "My God!" cried a staff-officer, "there's no time to lose. It's an order of some kind !" "Up with you, Freeman !" interrupted Rolfe. "Find General Thomas, tell him his aide died before he could finish the message " and, almost before the colonel could say the words, Freeman had sprung to horse and was tearing away. Once over the low ridge at their back he caught for the first time a glimpse of the battle, and the sight sent a chill through his veins. Here, there, and everywhere off toward the southwest and west, wounded men were drifting back through the cedars, some stum- bling painfully on, with a gun for a crutch, some half- carried by over-solicitous comrades, three or four to the man, skulkers and shirks only too glad of a chance to get out of the fight. Here and there some had dropped ex- hausted or gone, and their helpers had left them, but not 198 The Rock of Chickamauga. to return to the lines. Here and there, shameful sight, Freeman could see unwounded men, some without even a rifle, sneaking back through the stunted trees and hiding at the sight of staff-officers darting by. In a muddy lane he came upon a section of artillery, the drivers frantically lashing their horses, the cannoneers madly straining at the wheels, all headed for the rear. "Ordered back!" cried the sergeant, in command. "All that's left of the battery, by God ! They've swarmed over the rest of it !" "Where's General Thomas?" "Have you seen General Thomas?" Freeman yelled to man after man, but only one seemed to know or care. A boy of a soldier, barely eighteen, with an arm shattered at the elbow, let it drop and drip as he pointed with blood-covered hand to a knoll, a few rods farther on. Thither spurred the young adjutant, almost stumbling over a little knot of men, pallid and grief-stricken, bearing a bleeding form to the rear. "Colonel Roberts," sobbed a young soldier, stanch- ing the flow from a deep gash on his cheek. "Shot dead close to the general's side. It's all up at the right." "Where's General Thomas?" was the only reply. No time now to mourn for the lost. The lad turned and pointed through the trees where the smoke-mists of battle were drifting, and Freeman went on. Another minute and he came upon a group of horsemen, in whose midst, calm, steadfast, immovable, speaking slowly and dis- tinctly to a fuming, fiery, black-eyed little general, sat the indomitable soldier in charge of the center, and forgetful of everything but Palmer's plight and his urgent message, Freeman burst through the swarm of horses and horse- There sat the indomitable soldier in charge of the center, and forgetful of everything but Palmer's plight and urgent message. Page 198 The Rock of Chickamauga. 199 men until within a pace of his great leader, and there, trembling from excitement he strove vainly to control, almost shouted his words : "Pardon, general, but your aide-de-camp died trying to give your message to General Palmer." "Then you take it, sir," was the sudden answer. "Tell General Palmer to hold fast at his left, but to retire the right so as to form line facing south. I'll be with him directly." Five minutes later, Freeman, afoot, leaning on his sword, limped into the presence of his division com- mander. "Horse killed, sir, and fell on me. General Thomas directs " he began. "General Thomas is here," interrupted Palmer, point- ing to a party of officers who came slowly trotting through the drifting smoke. "Here, somebody, Free- man's down, too!" For the tall young soldier had swayed an instant, then dropped in a heap on the sod. CHAPTER XVII. When Freeman's senses came briefly back to him he thought he was again in France, and believed he had met and been worsted by Pierre Millaudon. A man's voice, chattering excitedly ; querulously, in the French language, was distinctly heard above all other sounds in the dimly lighted room in which he lay. A woman's voice, soft, yet remonstrant, even rebukeful, made occasional reply ; but if this were France what meant these other sounds from without ? The thud of hoof, the tramp of marching men, the rumble of wheels, the metallic ring of scabbard and harness, the occasional blare of bugle, and the dull, dis- tant thunder of cannon might all be France, but not the hoarse-shouted words of command, the imprecations and invective that startled the unaccustomed ears these were too genuinely Anglo-American to fail of recognition ; so, too, the occasional appeal of fellow sufferers like himself, crowded into the low-ceilinged, ill-ventilated apartment and its adjoining hallway. One voice, close at hand, was clamoring vehemently for a crutch, a stick, anything to help him to limp away ; he wouldn't be left behind. An- other was pleading feebly, feverishly for water, and presently a soldier in tattered gray, and bandaged head and arm, carried a brimming cup to the sufferer, and, stumbling against the sole remaining foot of the livelier patient, was roundly cursed for his clumsiness, and re- torted fiercely and fluently. The near-by feud dulled for The Rock of Chickamauga. 201 the moment the sound of other voices. Freeman strained his ears in vain to catch the words in French, but they abruptly ceased. Some officer of rank had suddenly en- tered, and at his commanding tone other sounds subsided in the stifling room. "Only those who are fit to march and fight, if need be, can go," were the words. "The Yanks may take care of the rest. A Federal officer, you said, doctor? Where is he?" And then entered a surgeon, ushering a tall, slender soldier in Confederate gray, a man with piercing black eyes and a sweeping mustache. "Is he fit to be moved? If so, call your men." "Leg broken, sir. Bruised all over. Ambulance over- turned, I believe. Oh, yes, he'll be up and in saddle again inside of six weeks " "Then bundle him into the wagon and send him along," was the order, and the next thing Freeman knew he was being slung in a blanket, through the hallway and forth into the chill but blessed air of the winter's night. Lan- terns were twinkling here and there. Fires were burning by the roadside. Houses stood close at hand, with gap- ing doorways and dimly lighted windows. The road in front was thronged with a swift-marching column. The North Star sparkled far away toward the horizon. What could this mean ? When last he set eyes on those serried ranks in gray, exultant, triumphant, irresistible, appar- ently, they were surging onward, northward through the cedars. He remembered how terrible they looked under the blood-red battle-flags as they came bursting through 202 The Rock of Chickamauga. the trees but two hundred yards away, and then with the crash of the volley, down went his stricken horse, and he he had Thomas's message to bear and must go on. But now, though victorious, as Freeman believed, now the victors had turned their backs to the northern sky and were marching swiftly, sullenly away. What could it mean ? What could it mean ? And leaving their wounded "for the Yanks to care for." What could that porten 1 ? Freeman was wofully weak, sore in every muscle, bound and bandaged, utterly bewildered. The surgeon and the senior officer had vanished in the throng. A wagon stuffed with straw stood close at hand, into which two wounded men had been lifted, and a third, with shrill and startling blasphemy, was damning those who sought to lift or touch him. There came sudden sound of crunching hoofs and wheels, a blare of bugle, a shout of "Clear the way, there," and a battery, striving to pass at a trot, bore down upon them. Freeman's bearers suddenly dropped him to earth, and then he was grabbed aside, he never knew how, for in sharp, sudden agony he swooned again and, when next he came to, the wagon had been swept away; there was none to bear him, and with two thou- sand and more of Southern wounded crowding the houses, hospital-tents, and sheds of Murfreesboro, Edgar Freeman found himself virtually bound hand and foot, a prisoner, yet among his own people. Close following Stanley's cavalry had come the sturdy men of the center, Thomas himself at their head. The sweeping success of early morn, and the long hours of that last day of the old unhappy year, had netted Bragg nothing, after all. The The Rock of Chickamauga. 203 tide had turned when at last it broke upon the granite front of Old Major Slow Trot and the center. Against that barrier the Southern hosts had stormed in vain, and after three days of futile effort, had abandoned the field and Northern Tennessee. Another State won for the Union ! And then with Rolfe and Allis and Rawson to come and cheer him, Freeman began to mend, and ask mani- fold questions. He was interested, of course, in what they had to tell him, but more interested still in matters they knew not of, and referred to as mere delirium pre- ceding returning consciousness. Freeman insisted that when first he was able to hear again, there were voices that he knew, speaking in French, and one of these was the voice of a young Creole, Millaudon, whom he had met in France, that the other was the voice of Katherine Clai- borne, whom he had known at the west fork. To Rolfe only did he speak of this at first, but as Rolfe merely smiled, Freeman told his tentmate, and Rawson was young enough to be credulous. Besides he, too, had heard something. It seems that soon after Freeman fell, close to his old regiment, they had lifted him into an ambulance to send him, with another wounded officer, to the rear. It was headed off by a section of artillery, struggling back through the cedars, and then caught in the throng of straggling men, horses, and guns, when after hours of stubborn fighting Sheridan's brigade, all out of ammuni- tion, came drifting to the rear. A bursting shell killed the driver. The mules tore away, and the luckless inmates of The Rock of Chickamauga. the ambulance were tumbled with it into a hollow, and picked up later by the charging line. "We thought it was all over with Negley and Palmer and Rousseau, too," said Allis, "but old Pap backs us up against the Round Forest, and there we were wedged shoulder to shoulder and planted solid as an anvil. There was no budging after that. But I tell you we were sick-hearted when Garesche's head went off right behind 'Old Rosy/ " Yes, it was all vividly interesting, but what Ned Free- man was eager to find was some one who could tell him who carried him into that house where he first came to, and where it stood, and what had become of all those who were in it. He had started on the campaign a sore- hearted man, believing himself wronged and flouted by that auburn-haired girl he had left in anger in Kentucky. He believed her guilty of encouraging the clandestine visits of a lover now known to be in the Southern army, even while giving a Northerner good reason to persevere in his devotion. He had tried to persuade himself he wished to shut her out of his heart, to have no thought save for his country and his country's need until that need were over, yet now that he believed he had heard Kate Claiborne's voice, he longed to know if she was still near and what share she had had in bringing him back to consciousness, and the road to new life. And Rolfe, the unbeliever, was the first to prove him- self in the wrong and Freeman right. He made investi- gation, found the cottage to which Freeman had been borne when brought in a wounded prisoner, found the woman of the house, and learned from her that a young The Rock of Chickamauga. 205 Federal officer had been left there by a guard and some bearers, with an older lady and with her niece and wounded Brother, and also a Lieutenant Millaudon, and that now the Claibornes had disappeared, gone, she had heard, to Tullahoma, with the intention of getting to Georgia or Alabama. By this time it was mid-January, and with his leg in splints and bandages, and his back and shoulders wrenched and lame, Freeman was beginning to sit up and take notice, as Rolfe said, and then there came distrac- tion. RoHe and the regiment were ordered forward, but before they moved Freeman had been borne to more com- fortable quarters, a large white house on the southern outskirts, and there, with a number of convalescing "rebs" about him, and only the surgeon and hospital people on the premises in blue uniform, there came a night when Freeman thought he had seen a ghost. The fact that General Thomas himself had twice been to see him, and that so distinguished an officer as Colonel Rolfe had been assiduous in attention, had greatly im- pressed the surgeon in charge of this particular detach- ment of sick, wounded, and convalescent. Doctor Whar- ton had found it possible to put Freeman in a little room on the first floor, opening on a broad back piazza, com- manding a view of the garden-walk, hedged by denuded bushes and crisscrossed by clothes-lines. When these lat- ter were not cumbered by sheets, pillow-cases, and towels, flapping in the wintry wind, one could see farther still, a broken-down back gate, a fence, minus many a panel, and a two-storied frame house, with porch and gallery, given 206 . The Rock of Chickamauga. over mainly to wounded Confederate officers, as could be readily seen. When first moved on his cot to this room, Freeman shared it with a young captain of cavalry who had been so enterprising and imprudent as to suspect something wrong at the southward front the fatal morn- ing of December 31, and had ridden out a little beyond the Franklin Pike, and into the welcoming arms of a troop of gray cavalry, who put a shot through his arm and a volley through his horse when he turned to ride back; relieved him of his boots, spurs, belt, saber, pistol, compass, watch, cash (They politely returned certain I O U's), gauntlets, hat, and overcoat, and sent him on into town, first prisoner from "the far-flung battle-line" at the west. Captain Preston's arm mended quicker than did Freeman's leg. He was in buoyant spirits over the chance of getting back to Kentucky on sick leave, and Freeman was both glad and sorry when he was gone. "I s'pose I'll have to move somebody else in here," said Doctor Wharton, "but I'll try to pick a less exuber- ant patient. Preston was too damned cheerful. He's got a girl somewhere near Lexington waiting for his home- coming. That's what's the matter." Poor Freeman had a girl not far from Lexington whom he had much offended, and would give his eyes to see and make it all up, if he could only feel sure he was wrong in his suspicion as to her night visitor. He had the room to himself and his occasional attendant, and stacks of Northern papers, and fond letters from mother and Elsie, mother beginning to speak of Colonel Rolfe as showing many very delicate and thoughtful attentions she The Rock of Chickamauga. 207 had not "believed him capable of," many mothers having deeply rooted conviction that instructors at the national academies who are compelled to take note of the pro- fessional shortcomings of youngsters in gray or blue, must be lacking in all the finer attributes of the officer and gentleman. Mother and Elsie both were over- whelmed with sense of Edgar's suffering, and looking, of course, for speedy promotion as the result of his heroism, to which, indeed, both General Thomas and Colonel Rolfe had referred in their letters. "Carried his orders afoot through heavy fire in spite of a twisted ankle and a shot through the leg that drained his life's blood, almost to the point of exhaustion, before we knew it." Then to think. of the ambulance accident later! Yes, mother and Elsie were both for coming to far Tennessee, but the general advised against it. Ned was doing perfectly well, would soon be up and in saddle again, and it was no place for ladies. Freeman lay thinking of this late one moonlit night, when a soft mantle of snow had fallen and the town was very still. His attendant, a semi-invalided young fifer, was curled up in his blanket on a straw-stuffed bed-sack on the floor. The curtainless window near his bedside enabled him to look out over the dismantled back garden, and the clear moonlight shone sparkling on hedgerow, pathway, fence, and gate, all edged and trimmed with nature's ermine. "No place for ladies," the general and the chief surgeon had declared, and Freeman had been thinking a bit wistfully of this virtual prohibition, and wondering who the luckier fellow or fellows could be 208 The Rock of Chickamauga. over in yonder tenement (for on its porch he had twice that evening caught sight of feminine forms, two of them), when all on a sudden, even as he looked, coming swiftly into view from he could not see or say where, was one of these feminine forms a young one and a graceful and to his surprise it was coming down the steps, up the pathway, through the gate, yes, and straight for the house wherein, utterly amazed, and thrilling with new ex- citement, Freeman lay; for now he knew that sharp col- loquy in French was no dream ; for the pallid, anxious, yet beautiful face so swiftly nearing him through the moon- light was that of Kate Claiborne, heroine of the night adventure, and the flood on the west fork. The next moment there stood the now shadowy form at his window, between him and the clear blue-white moonlight beyond, and there one moment it hovered, irresolute, as though peering into the darkened room. Then Ned Freeman picked up the heaviest object within reach, a bound copy of Volume I., "Life and Times of Andrew Jackson," and sent it spinning across the room at the fifer's sleeping, snoring head. "Wake up, Benny," he shouted. "There's a lady at the window!" And the lady, who at first sound of his voice had shrunk in alarm, now took courage and tapped at the door. "Please come in," called Freeman. "I'm in splints and this fat boy in a trance." But the door opened, the tall form in shadow said, "I beg your pardon, but we need Doctor Wharton at once. Doctor Sterling is called away and there's been an ac- cident." The Rock of Chickamaiiga 1 , 109 "Miss Claiborne, it's Ned Freeman" (He could not see the start) ; "you shall have Doctor Wharton at once. Get up, you sluggard ! Oh, you are up at last. Give the lady a chair and then scoot for Doctor Wharton. Do sit down, Miss Kate, please. I knew it was you I heard that night over by the " But suddenly as she came the lady had vanished. One stifled exclamation and she was gone. Freeman could follow her with his eyes as she fled like a wraith down the desolate pathway, and into that opposite homestead where lights were flitting, and there was sound of voices and footsteps and confusion, and presently came back "Benny." The doctof was up and off like a shot, he said, only he went through the next door lot, and so, for nearly an hour, Freeman waked and waited in vain to hear what had happened. Then Whar- ton came and told him, but only in part. Yes, it was Miss Claiborne. Her father had kept out of the war until their home was burned almost over their heads burned by men in Union uniform, and that settled it. Claiborne was a captain now in the Louisiana brigade, Breckinridge's division, and her uncle, Doctor MiHau- don, had left his practise at Lebanon, and was surgeon in the same division. It was they who recognized Free- man when he was brought into town with other wounded and prisoners. It was they who first cared for him, and now she was nursing her father and other Confederate wounded, and one young fool that night had slipped his bandages and sought to escape. The father was doing fairly well, but she had other anxieties and other patients on her hands, and she was so grateful to Mr. Freeman liO The Rock of Chickamauga, for his prompt aid, so sorry to have disturbed him. She Wouldn't have done that for the world if she had known. Wharton was shrewdly eying the young soldier's solemn face as he narrated. "D'you happen to know who the young fool is who tried to get away?" asked Freeman, unexpectedly. "Officially," answered Wharton, with some delibera- tion, "I have information that his name is McDonald, that he's an aide of General Breckinridge. She, however, called him Mr. Morgan." Whereat Ned Freeman sat almost upright, and Whar- ton expansively grinned. "He isn't much damaged, in wind or limb," said he. "It was a madcap exploit, com- ing back here and slipping past our pickets by night; then, when recognized, trying to whip a whole brigade. Now he's down again, and as soon as he can travel, they'll be shipping him North to prison, to Chicago or the Islands, I suppose." When morning came Benny, the fifer, was sent down the path with a grateful note and a basket of sundries, picked from a box that had come from New York. There were lemons and oranges, some hothouse grapes and some bottles of wine, and there came back a message by Wharton himself. It led to further correspondence with the enemy, to exchange of sentiment between the blue and the gray sure to set a war secretary's teeth on edge when he heard of it. It led to even more. One evening, late in January, Doctor Wharton, escort- ing Miss Claiborne to the little room she had but once be- fore invaded, and that in the darkness, left her a moment The Rock of Chickamauga. in seated by the old rocking-chair in which reclined Lieu- tenant Ned Freeman, of the th Illinois, his left leg extended upon an empty but comfortable barrel. Her face, sweet, serious, yet softly flushing, was toward the window. His, somewhat pallid and thin, yet filled with a certain sense of satisfaction, was toward the open door. He heard Wharton's jovial voice, his returning footsteps, the sound of others, but he little heeded in the pleasure of seeing again this brave and gentle girl, whose devotion to her father he so admired, whose misfortune he so de- plored. Even when the hall doorway was darkened by the entrance of those others, he did not at once look up. Miss Claiborne was telling of her father's improvement, of Mr. Morgan's convalescence. They had taken the lat- ter away. He was to go North that night. She had heard that his father had come to the army to see him, and then she faltered at sight of the amaze in Freeman's face, at sight of the sudden joy in his eyes the color that surged to his forehead. Then slowly the light died from her own face, as she turned and looked toward the door. There, just within the portal, was gray-haired Colonel Morgan, sad-eyed, yet sympathetic. There, at his side Kate Claiborne could never forget the look in her scornful eyes there stood Frances, his daughter. CHAPTER XVIII. "Do you remember my saying to you that night at the Helms' that something had occurred to perplex me ?" It was General Thomas himself who spoke. It ,vas Free- man, to whom the general had come to say adieu, who was thus addressed, and Freeman silently bowed his head. No one could be more perplexed than he. "It was about Donald Morgan. I had reason to be- lieve he was even then in the Confederate service. I knew that he had left his father's home, declaring that there he would be, yet that very evening his mother as- sured me he was not, and that they still hoped to hold him. But they failed, and now the boy goes to prison." Freeman, still unable to walk, sat silent. How long had Donald Morgan held that commission? What was he when he lay in hiding at the farmer's house near the west fork? Was he then an officer a soldier of the South? If so, and it should be known, the hangman's noose might end his days. If in the secret service, or if serving the South in any capacity within the Union lines without the uniform, there could be but one fate for him that of a spy. "Have they heard, sir, of his chum Jack Barbour ?" "That's the strange part of it, and puzzles me most," was the answer. "Wounded officers whom Colonel Mor- gan consulted, said they knew nothing of him. Ken- tuckians go so far as to say he has not joined the army. The Rock of Chickamauga. 213 They don't know where he is. Donald says they had a difference and parted. No one seems to know what he is doing. These are sorrowful days for my old friends. I made a plea in their behdf. I verily believe the foolish boy had no other object than a meeting with the girl he loved, but stronger influences than mine are against him. Sometimes I doubt if I have any influence." Sorrowful days, indeed, for old friends and for many more! The parting between the stricken parents, the weeping sister, and the young soldier Donald was some- thing not soon to be forgotten by those who saw. When at last the boy unclasped his mother's arms and, turning suddenly, strode away with his guards, there were officers in the Union blue who went to the aging father and ten- dered their sympathy and begged to be of service. With a train-load of wounded they went back to Nashville, the sorrowing three, and not another look for many a day had Ned Freeman of the face he loved the face that now had no look for him. And that last look haunted and disturbed him. Amazed as he had been at the sudden sight of her, he had not been so startled that he failed to note her every expres- sion. It was evident that the sight of Kate Claiborne, seated by his side, was something for which she was in no wise prepared, and there was instant anger and resent- ment in her flashing eyes. But if in the eyes of the Vir- ginia girl there flashed haughty challenge, there was no symptom of alarm in those of the girl from Louisiana. Miss Claiborne rose to her feet, with the quiet grace of her Creole blood and the dignity of a queen, bowed com- 214 The Rock of Chickamauga. prehensively to father and daughter and, by the door through which she had entered, slowly left the room, Wharton staring after her in astonishment, Colonel Mor- gan gazing in unmistakable sorrow. The Morgans re- mained but five minutes. They had come merely to see Freeman, to thank him and to wish him speedy recovery and, as the colonel expressed it, speedy recognition of the gallant service of which General Tho r ias had both spoken and written. As for Miss Morgan, she spoke hardly at all. It was she who reminded her father they must hurry back to Donald and mother. They left with something unsaid. The hand she gave Ned Freeman, or rather that he reached forth and seized, was cold and unresponsive. Then they were gone. "A devil of a fellow that Donald of theirs !" said Whar- ton, a few hours later. "I gather that Miss Claiborne was their near neighbor in Kentucky and Donald in love with her, and the parents opposed, and that it was to see her that he was ass enough to come riding back here, hoping to pass for a wounded officer, perhaps on parole, and first thing ran slap into some of Sam Wetherby's troop. I thought you'd be interested," he concluded lamely, for Freeman, mightily concerned, more than interested, was doing his best to look bored. He knew so much more of Donald than did this worthy ^Esculapian yet had not suspected this. So it was love and longing for Kate Claiborne that brought young Donald daringly back to the Union lines. It was love that, probably, had held him there about the now ruined homestead, after the angry parting with his The Rock of Chickamauga. 215 father long after he should have been with his com- rades in gray if gray was to be his final choice. So it was this love for poor Claiborne's daughter that had antagonized the Morgans, and made her the object of their dislike and distrust. So this explained the aversion in Frances Morgan's face as she stood there at the door- way, and looked upon Kate Claiborne with challenge in her flashing eyes, and now poor Don must go to the cold North, a prisoner of war, in spite of prompt offer of ex- change, in spite of the plea of the general of the lion heart, the soldier whose inflexible shield had bent the Southern spear, whose indomitable spirit had baffled Southern valor. "I sometimes doubt if I have any influ- ence," he sadly spoke, the day he came to say adieu. Thomas was to move forward nearer the entrenching lines of Bragg. Murfreesboro was for the time one vast field-hospital, and now, with Rolfe and Rawson gone, Ned Freeman's days would indeed have been lonesome but for ''poor Claiborne's daughter," whom he begged to be allowed to see again, and one coming led to another. It seems that when they left Kentucky, their last hold gone, they had accompanied Doctor and Mrs. Millaudon, with whom they had found refuge after the destruction of their home. Millaudon, joining the Louisiana brigade as surgeon, had installed his wife and niece in Murfrees- boro, confident, as were his comrades, that in a fortnight or so they would occupy Nashville as winter quarters. The refusal of Old Rosy to retreat after being soundly whipped all morning, the fearful reception given the men in gray when they charged the lines of Thomas in the late 2t6 The Rock of Chickamauga. afternoon, the fact that instead of vanishing with the old year, the Union bayonets came boring ahead again with the third day of the new, and then that Bragg, not Rose- crans, should abandon the field, leaving his wounded be- hind (There was method in that mode of warfare. It threw the burden of their keep and care upon a merciful adversary.) all this was a stupefaction to Doctor Millau- don. He had to leave his stricken brother-in-law, the veteran captain, with the wounded. He had to leave his niece, since she would not leave her father. He had even to leave his wife, who declared with truth that Kate and the captain had more need of her than had the surgeon, and, she added, "a better and safer place to stay." Cer- tain few of the Confederate surgeons had been selected to remain with the wounded and share their fate, which Bragg shrewdly conjectured would be no worse than if they went on southward, and ought to be better. But Millaudon was not one. The Louisiana brigade had not been as sorely tried as most of its companions, and Breck- inridge proved obdurate. So here were Mrs. Millaudon and Kate with Captain Claiborne and three other wounded, in the old house back of Wharton's establishment, and it pleased the surgeon in chief to see that they were cared for as were his own. Thanks to Mrs. Millaudon and Kate, they could be cared for even more tenderly. ft "But I wish to borrow this young lady again," said he, one morning. "One of my patients over yonder is lan- guishing because she hasn't been to see him since the day the Morgans called," and Wharton noted, with much self- The Rock of Chickamauga. 217 commendation, the instant flush that followed his words. It was but a step from one house to the other, and Kate Claiborne, later that sunny afternoon, was once more seated by Ned Freeman's chair. She came because he begged that she should come. She had urged that Madame Millaudon go with her, but the aunt declined. How could she leave four wounded offi- cers with no attention ? Kate went on Doctor Wharton's arm, and Freeman's eyes and greeting were eloquent of gratitude. She was constrained and almost silent for a while, but he begged her to answer him. He had need, he said, to know what Pierre Millaudon was demanding that night when Freeman was brought in a prisoner. She owned in reply that Millaudon was there, and had been "arguing," and had gone away angered because General Breckinridge would not order Freeman and certain other prisoners sent on South at once. But of her own part in the controversy she refused to talk, and Freeman abandoned the subject and turned to something else. He had need, he said, to know everything she could tell him about the strange affray that night at the old house that in which he had interposed to protect her father that in which some one had interposed in time to save him. All she would at first admit was that a soldier had been hanging about the place for a day or two. She saw him first when he came with a Major Cutler, who talked long with her father; and the day after they rode away, the soldier came back and was very impertinent, indeed insolent, to father, and finally, on another occasion, very rude to her, and then her father became furious and 2i 8 The Rock of Chickamauga. struck him. Then other soldiers came and helped the man O'Reilly, and then Mr. Freeman came to father's aid, and then still others. It was dark. She had not recognized him, she said. To Freeman's direct question : "Was it not Mr. Donald Morgan?" she looked him squarely in the eyes, and her eyes were clear and beauti- ful, and astonished him by her answer : "Mr. Donald Morgan was not the man." And all these months Ned Freeman had been believing himself indebted for his life, probably, to the timely aid of the young Virginian. If .not Donald Morgan, then who was it? And Miss Claiborne said she did not so much as see his face or hear his voice. She did not really know. Later Freeman asked for all that she could tell him about the night of the fire. She said they were roused at midnight by hammerings on their door, the fierce barking of the dog, and her father ran out to find the barn and sheds in a broad blaze. She dressed hurriedly to join him. They had tried to save the poor horses, the cow and calf, the negro servants aiding ; and even as they worked, there came a cry from one of the people, and turning they saw flames leaping up in the interior of the house itself, and by the glare caught sight of two or three forms in light-blue soldiers' overcoats, sneaking or scurrying away. In three minutes everything was a broad blaze ; in ten minutes everything was gone. They were ruined. Father appealed in vain to the general at Crab Orchard. He could fix the crime on nobody. Father named .O'Reilly and begged that he should be looked up at once. The Rock or ^nickamauga. 219 It was declared that O'Reilly was with Major Cutler in Louisville, and could not have been elsewhere. The Mor- gans had offered them shelter. Colonel Morgan had been most kind and sympathetic, in spite of differences that had occurred with father, but they preferred to go to their kindred. Friends took them to Crab Orchard and thence to Lebanon. That was all. It might be all, but the tear that trickled down her wan cheek told how sorrowful was the story. How little did the distant North know of the suffering and despair fall- ing alike on the just and the unjust, the innocent and the designing, in the sunny Southland that had been so beau- tiful, so proud, a twelvemonth gone ! February came, and further convalescence, and news from the front. Nothing doing in the way of campaign- ing, but something by way of promotion. Allis, step- ping up to a captaincy, had left vacant the office Freeman had filled the month of the fever. Now Rolfe wrote to tender the adjutancy to the fast recovering subaltern in Wharton's charge at the rear. "How soon can I go, doctor?" he cried, exultant. "Next week, perhaps," said the expert. "Only I want you to remember one thing you've got to look out for that shot-hole in the leg; it was a narrow escape for the artery. Men have bled to death before they knew they were hit. That's what killed Sidney Johnston at Shiloh. Remember this, Free- man, and perhaps you can go next week." Then, catch- ing sight of a face at the doorway, ne sprang hastily to his feet. "Oh, come in, Miss Claiborne come in, Mrs. Millordon." (He never could pronounce her name.) The Rock of Chickamauga. "Freeman here is talking about going to duty to-morrow, and I am telling him he can begin to talk about it next week. Come in and we'll have some tea. Just got the loveliest caddy of Oolong, straight from home, and suf- fering to have you share it." The girl would have held back; the aunt prevailed. Tea, real tea, wa. an almost unknown quantity to them now. Was it the long weeks of hospital life that had told upon the girl's health and spirits, for now, as they came and sat, Kate was pale and silent. Wharton and a stew- ard, bustling about, soon had a fragrant brew in a cracked but serviceable pot, and the four were cozily grouped, to all appearances, when another caller was announced. Captain Fulmer, of Thomas's staff, just in from camp on the Shelbyville Pike, and charged to see Freeman and take anything he might wish to send north- ward. He had brought in prisoners to General Rose- crans; had a ten days' leave to run home and see "the folks" at Louisville, and was to call at Lebanon and Liberty. Was there anything he could do ? They made Fulmer sit, and sip hot tea and tell the tidings from the front. He had been with Palmer's divi- sion within twelve hours, and with Rolfe and "The Chil- dren of Israel," and bore many cordial messages to Free- man. There was talk of changes, and of promotion and resignation. Bostwick had been invited by his division commander to vacate his office and go home. "Bos" had applied, it seems, for a leave which Palmer disapproved. Then "Bos" tried surgeon's certilicate, and Palmer nega- tived that on the dictum of the division surgeon that, The Rock of Chickamauga. 221 physically, "Bos" was sound as a button. "Bos" got wrathful, and otherwise full, and things looked squally. Palmer had no earthly use for him at the front, but "Bos" was a power in politics at home. The governor was try- ing to smooth matters over, but it looked as though "Bos" would have to stand court martial, or resign, and his own regiment didn't seem to care much which. Then came a question, for Fulmer was garrulous as ever and tea loosened his tongue : "Freeman, who d'ye s'pose I saw over at headquarters? Your special friend Old Pop Eyes, Colonel Cutler. What's he doing here now?" Freeman shook his head. He didn't much care. This sort of talk was not of interest to ladies anyway. Ful- mer might be a model officer in camp and field, but he lacked social graces. Fulmer persisted. It might be that he had been celebrating the gift of a ten days' leave, and the tea on top of it all was now going to his head. Ful- mer talked of things that staff-officers should not even seem to know about. "You never hear the general speak ill of any one," said he, "but if there is a man he dislikes and distrusts it's that same Cutler. Well, I must be going. I'll tell 'em at Liberty I left you in the very best of hands," and with a world of meaning in his knowing wink, the aide-de-camp decamped. Then Freeman turned ruefully to look for Kate Clai- borne. She had risen during Fulmer's voluble monologue and retired quietly to the rear doorway. She was stand- ing there now, half-shrinking from the light, lost to The Rock of Chickamauga. everything within the room, staring fixedly at something or somebody without. Close to the decrepit old gate, his back toward them, his hat on the back of his head, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his broad, flapping trousers, scrutinizing the windows, doorways, and porch of that opposite house, where lay Captain Claiborne and his wounded comrades, a man in civilian dress was making deliberate survey, and something in his burly form seemed familiar to Freeman's eyes. Presently he began slowly to turn toward them, and as he turned Kate Claiborne shrank farther back be- hind the door, and Freeman got an excellent view of the intruder's face. In spite of beard and disguise, he knew the man at a glance the soldier called O'Reilly and at the sight he nearly started from his invalid chair. "What is it, Freeman?" was Wharton's quick demand. "See that man, doctor? He's a spy!" Wharton sprang to his feet and started for the door. Instantly Miss Claiborne turned and faced him, her fea- tures pallid, her eyes appealing. "Doctor, you're not going to arrest that man ?" "You heard what Freeman said," was the blunt answer. "Spy he may be. Spying he is, but -not for the South. Don't touch him, doctor. He hates us enough now, and you don't know what harm he can do to us !" Mrs. Millaudon had risen, amazed at her niece's vehe- mence. Wharton stood and looked at her in astonish- ment. "He surely has no business prowling about my hospi- tals," was Wharton's sturdy answer, when he had recov- The Rock of Chickamauga. ered himself. "Let me by, if you please." Then out he went into the keen air of early evening, and the stranger coolly faced him. "Who are you, sir, and what are you doing here?" de- manded the surgeon, angrily. "Tending strictly to my business, Doctor Wharton. By order, as you will see," and with impressive triumph he drew forth and tendered a folded paper, "of Major-gen- eral Rosecrans." CHAPTER XIX. Captain Claiborne was not mending as he should, and Wharton was perplexed and troubled. No one among the hundreds under Wharton's care had more devoted nursing. No one of the wounded, but for his years, should have progressed more steadily toward recovery, for his wound, though severe, was simple. Freeman was up and stumping cheerily about the porch in search of air and sunshine, and a face at the other end of the garden walk, for as Freeman progressed Kate Claiborne receded. Now that he could hobble about she came not at all, even when he sent word his eyes were so wearied looking for her that now he could not read. Miss Claiborne's excuse was that she was more imperatively needed at her father's side. For a man who was known to be deeply in love with an auburn-haired girl in Kentucky Freeman was showing uncommon interest in the dark-haired lass from Louisiana. This, though most reprehensible in a lover, seems to lack nothing by way of precedent, and "Charles O'Malley" was favorite reading in the Federal army throughout the war, and was not unknown in that of the Southern States. Ever since the evening of his annoying encounter with "the man O'Reilly" in the back yard of his bailiwick, Wharton had been studying Katherine Claiborne with new and singular interest. Women puzzled him not a little at any time, but Miss Claiborne had him "stumped," The Rock of Chickamauga. 225 as he expressed it, now. lie could not understand her. She had every reason, so he learned from Freeman, to hate O'Reilly, yet she feared and pleaded for him, and her plea was based, on her own admission, on dread of what he might yet do. Freeman, who knew of his prowling and had heard of his misdeeds at the Claibornes', went so far as to declare to Doctor Wharton that he believed O'Reilly had very much to do with the burning of the homestead, no matter who said he was in Louisville at. the time. Freeman declared that O'Reilly must have been of the gang of ruffians he had encountered the night of the affray on the west fork ; yet, when Doctor Whar- ton carried the matter up to general headquarters and complained of the man as spying about his hospitals, and claiming the right to under his instructions, the medical director conferred with the new chief of staff, successor to the lamented Garesche, and this official said in so many words that O'Reilly was vouched for by the highest authority; moreover, that he had unearthed unimpeach- able testimony against certain residents of Kentucky, liv- ing under government protection, yet engaged in giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Moreover, he was on the scent of other and worse misdoings, by means of which General Rosecrans and the army had been made to suffer. In fact he was an invaluable, if possibly unprepossessing, man, and when next Wharton came upon O'Reilly that invaluable person was smoking a cigar with a convales- cing captain of the Pelican Guards, who occupied at night the cot adjoining Captain Claiborne's, and O'Reilly leered up at the surgeon, with the salutation : "Well, doc, how'd 226 The Rock of Chickamauga. you come out in the matter of that complaint?" whereat Wharton snapped his mouth shut and passed him by with barely suppressed blasphemy. Two days later, and as the guest of that Pelican cap- tain, Wharton found O'Reilly seated in the room where Claiborne lay, and Claiborne from that instant had begun to fail. Then came the week in which it had been promised that Freeman should set forth to join "The Children of Israel" now as their adjutant, a fact that seemed to have promoted still further reaction at home, if mother's let- ters were any criterion, and Freeman was divided in mind as to his real wishes. There was a lull in the war. Bragg and Rosecrans were in what might be termed winter quarters, and standing at gaze, looking for the best place to hit the other when the roads dried in the spring. There was much paper work in camp and not too much drill, for the rains were frequent, and the roads and fields were sandy loam and deep with mud. Freeman would miss little active service at the front, and he might be of some kind of service to those who had tried to serve him, could he conscientiously remain here a week or so longer. Wharton wished him to stay, but there came a day and a question that brought trouble. "Have you any enemy at headquarters?" he sud- denly and impressively asked Freeman, one February eve- ning. "I certainly had, and he probably left his venom be- hind," said Freeman. "I mean Cutler." "He's been gone more than a week, stirring things else- The Rock of Chickamauga. 22 7 where, I suppose, and this don't seem a thing he could have initiated." "What's the thing?" asked Freeman, on the instant. "Why it's like this," and Wharton hesitated, "the medical director has asked me rather pointedly, twice, if some of my preferred patients weren't taking a long time from their regiments, and at last I asked him to be ex- plicit give me a case, or reason so to-day he asked flat-footed if I didn't think you could have gone to duty several days ago. When I flared up and said no, and ex- postulated, he shifted the blame on headquarters, said the adjutant-general himself had intimated that he had re- ports to the effect that the wound had healed, and there was nothing but a petticoat between you and duty. Now don't get up and rear!" But Freeman had got up, and was wrathfully "rear- ing" in good earnest. Freeman was mad as a trampled nest of hornets, and was for going at once and having it out with Old Rosy himself. He couldn't walk that far, and Wharton wouldn't give him an ambulance, so he took it out in tremendous vocabulary and unwarranta- ble exercise, despite Wharton's efforts to soothe him. He brought on a night of fever and sleeplessness for which Wharton was utterly unprepared. Coming in at mid- night from a visit to Claiborne's bedside, he found Free- man up and composing the tenth essay at a very dis- composing missive to the adjutant-general, in which he demanded a court of inquiry on his own case and court martial for his slanderous accusers. "Now, this won't do, Freeman," said Wharton. "I 128 The Rock of Chickamauga. was a damned fool to tell you, but I never dreamed you'd take on like this. A queer thing grew out of it. I \vas trying to comfort old Claiborne over yoqder, and told him even in our service officers were wronged and misjudged, and as an instance gave him something not all, of course of what they said of you, whereupon that excitable Pelican, Captain Lafitte, began swearing in French, and said things that worried Claiborne, for he answered back, and the next thing I knew my two pa- tients were jabbering at each other in a lingo that was Greek to me, and then Miss Kate came flying in (What beautiful hair she has!), all distress; interposed between them, and placed her hand on her father's mouth, and looted drawn daggers at Pelican he was yawping about a young Lieutenant Millordon, and it's plain as a pike- staff Lafitte's simply dead gone on that plucky girl, and she won't look at him. I wish you could have heard it, YQU speak French and I don't." It was late at night, after twelve, when the doctor en- tered. It was much later when he left. He had hoped to get Freeman to bed and to sleep, but the excitement was not over. It had begun to drizzle, but over the drip,, drip of the water in the old-fashioned wooden trough beneath the eaves, and the steady pour into the cistern, there could be heard at regular intervals the odd call of the sentries as they reached the end oi their assigned and measured posts the "About" that, passed from man to rnan, provided against their walking in opposite direc- tions and leaving a space unguarded. It was a bit of sentry-duty that grew out of the conditions of the Civil The Rock of Chickamauga. 119 War, yet has never appeared upon the pages of instruc- tion. It was especially in vogue when sentries sur- rounded a prison-camp, and here at Murfreesboro many of the prisoners were by this time fit for duty with the colors, and some of them were seeking means to escape. This very week came rumors of raiding parties of South- ern Horse, sweeping around the flanks of the advanced divisions and striking at anything valuable trains, tracks, bridges, or convoys at the rear. A daring col- umn of Wheeler's brigade had even swooped upon the pickets south and east of the big field-hospital here on the banks of Stone's River. What if wholesale jail de- livery were contemplated? "Double the outposts and order the sentries to fire if the first challenge is not heeded," were the instructions of the field-orficer of the day, and an access of nervous- ness on the part of the sentries showed how seriously they took the word. "One fellow nearly jabbed me with his bayonet going into my own hospital," the doctor was telling Freeman, as he mixed a soothing draft. Then suddenly set down the cup. "Hello! What's that?" There was sound of scurrying footfalls on the garden walk, following a struggle, a smothered altercation, and, as Wharton sprang to the doorway, he was amazed to meet Kate Claiborne, disheveled, with the rain-drops on her dusky hair and coursing down her pallid face. Be- hind her, dripping, remonstrant, and nearly out of breath, came her aunt. "What on earth " began Wharton, 230 The Rock of Chickamauga. "Oh, doctor, let me in ! I I know Mr. Freeman is up, and I must see you about father, and Aunt Marie is de- termined I shall not " "It is that I offered to come myself me, dear doctor. It is that a demoiselle should not," gasped poor Madame Millaudon. "You may .come if you will, Aunt Marie," interrupted the girl excitedly, "but you do not conceive the danger, and I must explain." "Come in, both of you. Yes, sergeant" this to the non-commissioned officer who came, dripping, to the porch to demand the meaning of this strange visitation. "This is my affair, and I will be responsible. Tell the officer of the guard it is Madame Millordon, and her niece, to see me on important business. Come in, ladies, and, first thing, we will have some tea. Then you shall tell me." "But, no; it must be told at once, for back to my stricken brother must I fly," said madame, -and would have added more but that the blood of the Claibornes was up and would not be denied. Kate's eyes were flashing as she began, but speedily they dimmed with tears. "It is this, doctor : My father is dying here, and there is but one way in which to save him. He cannot do harm. He can never take up arms again. Oh, is it not possible to take him away from here beyond these lines back to the South his home ? There I can nurse him to life again. Here they will kill him." "My dear Miss Claiborne, how can we proceed? The The Rock of Chickamauga. 231 South refuses exchange to broken-down soldiers. Your father probably could never march again. Your people, or rather your government, excuse me, would be glad enough to take him otherwise." "Would they not exchange him at once if I saw Gen- eral Bragg?" she demanded. "Let me tell my story to him and you will see how quickly they will act. Can- not /go? Cannot / see General Rosecrans, and be al- lowed to go through the lines? In two days I should be back with General Bragg's request. Surely you have captains there you would be glad to have back in ex- change for him." "No doubt of that, eh, Freeman ?" answered Wharton. "But, pardon me now, Miss Claiborne, if I ask a ques- tion. Here your father has the best attendance your own surgeons or I can give him. Here he has better food and medicine than he could get if farther south. Here he has his sister and you. Wherein would it benefit him to take a rough ride to Tullahoma, since you can offer nothing as good as he can have inside our lines?" "Because he knows, and I know, he can never be safe so long as he is within those lines." "Nonsense, dear young lady! If need be, we'll treble the guard about him, and keep him protected against any possible harm." "Except the one I dread. Oh, doctor, it's the fear of what you yourselves may be ordered to do that is killing him and me. Mr. Freeman, you understand," she cried at last, turning, appealing, to the young soldier, who 232 The Rock of Chickamauga. had quit his chair at her coming and was standing silent, sad-faced, and confounded. "I understand? Why, Miss Claiborne, I cannot imag- ine what could be brought against him." "Oh!" she sobbed. "You saw, or heard, the night of your last visit the time of the assault. There were two gentlemen, Southern men there, in the house. They had appealed to father for protection, for a place to hide. They had been suspected, pursued. What could be do but shelter them ? Then others had come to him at other times, and papers had been left with him for others still. Don't you see what an enemy could make of all this?" There was a moment of silence, broken only by the plash of the rain without and the half-stifled sobbing of poor Madame Millaudon. Then the doctor spoke, for Freeman in distress could offer no word. "My poor child, if the half of what you tell me were true, how could we let your father go?" And then, realizing perhaps for the first time how much she had revealed, the girl glanced swiftly from Freeman's half-averted eyes to the doctor's grave and troubled face. Then, with sudden, despairing, moaning cry, reeled to the doorway and dropped senseless on the threshold. They threw themselves about her at once, Wharton first; but suddenly he looked up, startled, for the nervous yell of a near-by sentry rang thrillingly on the air : "Haiti Who goes there?" A crash of fence-panel, a scurry of feet, was the only The Rock of Chickamauga. 233 answer. "Halt, I say!" the same voice again, and al- most on top of it the shout of a sergeant : "Shoot, damn you ! if you see him !" Then, "bang !" and a rush of men through the lower yard ; a fierce, short struggle ; a volley of blasphemy ; a loud, "Hands off, you infernal fool !" Then awkward silence. Then, slow, abashed, reluctant, the return of the little band of guardsmen, three or four, the sergeant scowling in their midst. "What was it?" hailed Wharton, as he looked up from the pallid face, still humbly pillowed there in the door- way, only his strong, sustaining hand between the pros- trate head and the boarding. "I seen a feller go sneaking away as the door bust open," began a sentry, "and I had my orders " "Yes, I know; but who was it?" demanded Wharton curtly, the light of a new discovery in his eyes. "That Mister O'Reilly," answered the sergeant, in sul- len disgust; "sneakin' secret service, an' be damned to it and him!" CHAPTER XX. "There's no sense in your fussing this way, Freeman," Doctor Wharton was saying, on a fine, crisp, frosty Feb- ruary morning, a few days later. "You've got what you've been wanting for weeks orders to rejoin your regiment and now you want to stay here and fight somebody when nobody else here wants to fight. When you've been half as long in the soldier business as I have you'll know it's useless trying to get satisfaction out of superior headquarters. You want to convince somebody up there that somebody's done you injustice. Now, the best way, in my opinion, is to limp along to your regi- ment. I'll straighten the other matter out." "You couldn't straighten out your own squabble," an- swered Freeman tartly. "They beat you hands down when you renewed your complaint against that black- guard O'Reilly." "Simply because I couldn't prove what I said, and that, 'fore God, I believe that he was spying and listen- ing at our door; not watching the other, as he claimed. But I'll nail that man yet, Freeman, no matter who's behind him. Now, you stump over and say good-by to the Claibornes. They'd give 'most anything to be going where you are." Ruefully Freeman had obeyed. Life looked full of ir- ritation, misunderstanding, vexation, again. Some un- seen, insidious power seemed ever busy involving him in The Rock of Chickamauga. 235 new mischief, enmeshing him in a net of circumstance that involved all about him all in whom he felt the faint- est interest. His eyes had been startlingly opened as to the probable character of Claiborne's callers of the year before. The revelations of that midnight visit, of the half-distracted girl, had well-nigh confounded the young officer. It seemed difficult to think of the gray-haired, dignified, broken-down gentleman as consorting with known spies or willingly making his house their ren- dezvous or even their refuge, and, as for Kate's com- plicity in such uncanny traffic, Freeman scouted it from the start. Very possibly Claiborne had been induced to give shelter to young gallants who had cast their lot with the South, but had not yet received either their commissions or their regimentals. Very possibly he had received let- ters, and passed them, for these hotspurs of the border States, and one thing had led on to another until the homestead was burned over his head, and he, when al- most too old for the duty, had drawn sword as a captain in Confederate service, and now, when friends on both sides would have been glad to see him exchanged, some secret yet powerful influence stood in the way. Against the policy of the Southern officials, General Bragg had answered the daughter's written appeal, sent through the lines under flag of truce, offering in ex- change for the crippled veteran who could fight no more a vehement, vigorous young soldier of the Union who was full of it, and, to the dismay of Claiborne's friends, the reply of General Rosecrans was that the matter would 236 The Rock of Chickamauga. have to be referred to Washington. Then, indeed, it looked as though Claiborne were seriously involved, and further proceedings were in contemplation. Then Freeman had a letter from his colonel that gave him grave uneasiness. "Did you recover the note-book and letters lost from your overcoat in the flood on the north fork ?" was one question. "I ask because of a queer story that I've been trying to run to earth." Freeman had not recovered them, nor had he heard anything of them. He had come to believe them buried deep in the mud, and a total loss. Better that, he thought, than that they should fall into unfriendly hands. The letters seemed innocent enough at the time. There were four of them, as he remembered, stoutly tied, and the uppermost was addressed "Honorable John B. Radford, Crab Orchard, Kentucky." Claiborne had said to him that night of the cloudburst : "I'll get you across if I can, lieutenant, but it looks as though there'd be no moving out of here for me this day or two, so if you can run these on to Crab Orchard to-night or to-morrow morning it will put us square." Never at the moment had Freeman suspected anything amiss. The topmost letter was addressed by Claiborne himself, for Freeman knew his writing. The "Honorable John B. Radford" was a Kentuckian of unquestionable integrity, if not a pronounced Union man. It was barely two miles from camp to Crab Orchard, and Freeman had agreed, as a matter of course. The flat memorandum-book he valued because he had long carried it, at home and abroad, and because of its The Rock of Chickamauga. 237 contents some treasured relics of youthful days and three prettily penned missives from The Oaks in the hand of Frances Morgan. But what queer story could be woven from these, and who was the weaver ? There had come still another letter, from mother, away in New York, and this, too, breathed a note of alarm. "Edgar, my boy," she said, "I hope you have not been imprudent, but I cannot help feeling anxious. Mrs. Mor- gan's latest letter, very sweetly acknowledging some trifles we ventured to send for them, spoke so guardedly of you; indeed, with something like constraint; and in answer to one I wrote to General Thomas, thanking him for his commendation of our boy, and begging him to keep a watchful eye upon you, he says he hopes soon to see you restored to the regiment, 'where influences will be far more promotive of your interest than those into which you have been thrown of late. 'There are days,' he goes on to say, ( as I myself have discovered, when an officer's conduct must not only be, but seem, so far above suspicion that even the envious cannot question or en- emies asperse- it.' Edgar, who are the Claibornes, and what do you really know of them?" "Who are those Claibornes?" Had he not frankly and fully tried to tell the anxious mother all that he knew on that head? Why should she now revive the question, when in view of Kate Claiborne's words it was much less easy to answer? But he was going now to bid the Claibornes adieu. Only once, and for a flitting moment at that, had he seen Miss Claiborne since her midnight coming, with Aunt 238 The Rock of Chickamauga. Marie, to that eventful meeting. She had gone the very next morning, and Colonel Fry, of Kentucky, had been her escort and friend, to beg of General Rosecrans that her letter be forwarded to General Bragg. When the answer came she was for the moment radiant with hope. When the announcement was made that, after all, the matter would have to be referred to Washington, she was stricken almost with despair, and since then had not left her father's bedside except to rest at odd hours in the room that had been set apart for these sorrowing women. It had now three occupants, the third being the wife of a wounded colonel, whose condition had become so criti- cal that her prayers were answered and she, too, had been passed through the lines. Freeman gave his card to a soldier-nurse and bade him ask if the ladies would see him, as he had come to say good-by. He found Madame Millaudon at the head of the open stairway to the upper gallery, and, as it was too cold for out-of-door conferences, she led him to the bare little apartment which had become their prison- home. "Will you seat yourself ?" she asked, as she noted how heavily he leaned upon the stout cane. "Kate is with her father. She will come soon." There was a simple bureau and mirror by the window. An old-fashioned wash-stand, with chintz cover, stood opposite. A rag carpet, two wooden chairs, and a stove completed the furniture. Three hospital-cots, folded, leaned against the wall, and the bedding had been carried to the side gallery. The room was barely ten feet square and was barely furnished, yet a dozen women envied those three the The Rock of Chickamauga. 239 privilege of being there and near the wounded men they loved. Freeman lowered himself slowly into the indi- cated chair and asked first for the captain. Madame Millaudon could only slowly shake her head. Then, at the open doorway, a faint color in her wan cheek, stood Kate. Freeman struggled to rise, and she saw the ef- fort, stepped quickly forward as though to place her hand upon his shoulder, suddenly withdrew it, and said: "Please don't try." And then, standing there, looked down at the young knight once again in presentable uni- form and properly groomed. "How kind of you to come as soon as you could move about," was all she found it possible to say. He held forth his hand for hers, and she gave it slowly, and would have withdrawn it quickly, but he did not at once surrender. "May I see your father, too, before I go?" he asked. "Go ? Go where ? Which way, I mean ?" was the sud- den answer, all question, all startled surprise, and, in spite of gallant effort at recovery, all distress. "To my regiment," he said simply. Then, with ir- repressible feeling: "They do me the honor at head- quarters to insinuate that I am shirking." "I never dreamed of your thinking of going so soon," she faltered, and her eyes fled from his, her young heart fluttered. Then, for something had to be said : "Where is the regiment now, and is Colonel Rolfe still in com- mand ?" "Some ten miles away to the southwest, and Rolfe is 240 The Rock of Chickamauga. there. I'll tell him you asked for him. And how is Cap- tain Claiborne to-day?" "No better." This with sorrowful shake of the head, "And it is so hard to cheer him. He he wants to see you, but but " and she returned to the door an4 looked down the narrow hallway, "the others are still there." Then up rose Aunt Marie. "I will go speak with the Captain Lafitte," said she. "I shall invite him to the view. See, the sunshine is superb, and one sees afar." It proved an inspiration. It was not long before, in mod- ulated yet eager tone, she was heard conducting her fel- low citizen of New Orleans along the passageway and out to the gallery. The attention was unusual and flat- tering. JMadame had noticed him but casually since the altercation in which her brother had been involved. There was another occupant of the improvised ward, as Kate slowly led freeman in, but he lay, poor fellow, in semi- stupor, and Claiborne seemed to mind him not at ail The long, thin, white hand extended to clasp that of tht Northern soldier was pitiably weak, but Claiborne's eyes were almost brilliant in their eagerness. "Bend down," he whispered, the moment greetings were over. "I want no one to hear but you." And as Freeman awkwardly obeyed, one stiff leg refusing to bend: "Lieutenant," he asked, "have you ever heard anything of those letters ?" "I think I told you long ago that they were lost in the flood; probably swept out of the overcoat pocket," was the evasive answer. The Rack of Chickamauga. 241 "I know you did/' and the Southerner's manner be- came impatient, almost irritable ; "that's why I'm asking now. Have you ever heard anything to indicate that they had been found?" "Until yesterday," said Freeman slowly, "not so much as a word." "But yesterday What?" And Claiborne's hand was clutching nervously at the shabby coverlet. "A letter from Colonel Rolfe asking me if I had ever succeeded in finding them, and saying there was a queer story afloat." "Tell me the story," whispered Claiborne, and the pale face had grown gray, the hand was trembling violently. "I would if I knew it, but I don't," was the answer. "Then tell me what you suspect." Freeman turned and looked up into Katherine's face, almost in appeal. She stood with one hand pressed over her heart; the other seemed groping for support. He took it with his left and placed and held it on his own shoulder. "Captain, I fear that those lexers were taken from my overcoat pocket, and by your enemy and mine. Colonel Cutler and that man O'Reilly both had access to it. If there was anything in those letters to harm you, it is all known." "To harm me !" gasped Claiborne. -'That is not the half. There was matter there involving people I would not have brought to harm you would not have seen harmed for anything we possessed. They could harm even you." 242 The Rock of Chickarhauga. "Then it's past praying for," said Freeman simply. "Was it quite a square thing to make me the bearer ?" The hand on his shoulder pressed heavily. He could tell that the girl was silently weeping. "It would have been contemptible had I known. I did not learn their contents until later. They were given me by Donald Morgan." "Then I do not wonder at the miserable anxiety of his poor people," said Freeman quietly. "He has been build- ing up a case against himself, a case for the gallows, if what I fear and hear is true. You know he's been taken North to prison." "I knew he was sent North. I know with what he will be charged," and now the unresisting hand on the shoul- der bore still more heavily. Was it that she was trying to signal to communicate ? "Father, dear father," she bent and murmured to him, "you are talking too much. You must not agitate your- self. Mr. Freeman fully understands. He has even tried to help us has tried to keep that man away." "That man has dogged me ever since the day he came first with that cold-blooded scoundrel, Cutler. I had knowingly done nothing up to that time against the Fed- eral government or its officers. And now, with Donald Morgan to be tried, and those letters in the hands of the government, it is only a question of days or hours when they arraign me." "What's that about Donald Morgan?" asked a quiet voice at the door, as Wharton came strolling unconcern- edly in from the wintry sunshine. "A nice piece of news The Rock of Chickamauga 243 we've been getting to-day! Our people were too de- liberate in moving that young, gentleman across the Ohio. Joe Wheeler and his raiders cut out that train close to Bowling Green, and Mr. Don confound him for all the bother he has cost us ! is back across the Cum- berland Mountains good for more mischief." "Then," said the invalid slowly and thoughtfully, "it is useless for me to hope to get away. It is all hopeless." And then Aunt Marie came hurrying in, Captain La- fitte close following, and distress was in her eyes. "A squad of Yankee soldiers," said Lafitte, "coming down the path." "Yes," chimed in a voice at the opposite entrance, "coming down the path, and up the stairs, and into this room, if I say so, and guarding every possible exit against our interesting invalid here." And without fur- ther ceremony, even to doffing his hat, O'Reilly, the ex- soldier, came sauntering into the room. CHAPTER XXI. There was trouble in the Army of the Cumberland, and it wasn't Old Rosy's fault. Ever since the summoning of Halleck to Washington there had been worry for more than one army leader in the field, and what was trouble for him meant trouble for his. The new brains-in-chief of the military establishment had impressed his indi- viduality and views, in spite of distance, on the various commanders at the front, and not one of them had been allowed freedom of action. Even Grant, cutting loose from the great river and swinging at Jackson, and the Mississippi Central, in a brief campaign replete with bril- liant generalship and stirring victory, had achieved his success only after shutting his ears to the click of the tele- graph. Like Nelson at Copenhagen, he would not see restraining orders until he had fought and won his battle. But there had been no such luck for the Army oi he Cumberland. From the start it had been cumbered by contradictory orders. When sending it east from Cor- inth to Chattanooga, Halleck demanded that it should repair every inch of the long railway. Buell begged and protested. It meant piteous delay. Halleck would have it. The road was mended; the opportunity lost. Bragg had started north. Buell had to follow, and the road, newly stocked and for the first time in its history in capital running order, was handed over to the South, as pretty and valuable a present as it had yet received. Trie Rock of thickarfiaiiga 1 . then followed the controversy in Reritucky. Then Biiell's relief. Then orders to Old Rosy to strike at East Tennessee, and OJd Rosy kfiew that tiiat would simply leave open house for the main body in West Tennessee, where Bragg was in force. And then came Mu'ffrees- bbro, a victory snatched fforh 1 tne jaws of defeat. Theti,- cieriiand fof something more when the squashy, sanely, loainy roads let the gun-wheels down to the hubs, and stalled every battery that tried therri. And then, witli the coming of March, wefit a letter from "Old Brains" to those two a'rrhy commanders far to the west Grant on the Mississippi, Rosecrans at Mu'rfreesboro promis- ing the vacant ma'jor-gerieralship iri the regular army to the first army conimah'def to win a signal victory. Grant read, pocketed, and said nothing. Rosecrans read, pro- tested, arid stormed at trie lawyer-soldier installed at the war department. Rosecrans refused to be "degraded by such auctioneering of honors," arid so the breach was widened. Then Rosecrans stood up for Thomas, as Biiell had done before him, arid Thomas had done fof both ancl would have done for any b'h6 of "the officers appointed over hirh," as his oath' provided. And so it happened that there was no powerful friend at court to speak for the Army of the Cumberla'fid, and when it faihed it pou'red. It always poured when' anything was to be done iri Tennessee. The foa'ds were quagmires all that Spririg, arid even the long-legged cavalry of Forrest a'nd Wheeler had difficulty getting about. Forrest said they won by swirnmirig. There were months in which nothing in the way of marching could be attempted. As for battling, 246 The Rock of Chickamauga. that would have been madness, unless the entrenched Confederates could be induced to muzzle their batteries, in sportsmanlike deference to the fact that mud had muz- zled ours. So there came long weeks of prodding from the rear, and protest from the front, and prophecies that the Army of the Cumberland would never again be got to fight, and all the glory would go to Grant and the Army of the Tennessee, etc., etc., and more tempers be- came testy, and camp language and manners impolite, and this was the state of affairs in Ruddy Rolfe's big regiment as Freeman was settling down to his new duties, and Freeman, it may be said at once, had come back to them in no companionable mood. It was, in fact, in great dejection, from which Rolfe vainly strove to lift him. The cutting-out expedition by means of which that peculiarly light-riding trooper, "Point" Wheeler, had rescued Lieutenant Don Morgan, and certain other de- sirable young Southern officers, had much exasperated the secretary of war. Scathing comments did he make, and bitter things did he say as to certain of our generals in the Middle West, accusing them of being far more loyal to family ties than to these United States. Some- body certainly had induced General Rosecrans to consent to young Morgan's being taken from the cars at Nash- ville and, with certain other Southern officers, held at local hospitals for treatment and recuperation before being sent from a moderate climate to the raw and rig- orous wintry winds that swept the prison-camps on the shores of Lakes Erie and Michigan. It was done on The ROCK of Chickamauga. 247 the initiative of a merciful medical director, and the in- stigation of a Western war governor, who, before the war, had gained many a friend in Southern families and could not forget them now. Under these circumstances, possibly unexplained to General Joe Wheeler, it was most indelicate on his part to intercept that particular train when finally started for the Ohio, and equally un- feeling to elude all attempts of the Union troopers to intercept him and his precious charges on his intricate return. In his report of the successful expedition, a copy of which, with suspicious ease, was captured by a scout- ing-party of our cavalry, General Wheeler gave much credit to his volunteer aide, Mr. John Marshall Barbour, of Kentucky, whose knowledge of the country had proved invaluable, and when Ned Freeman was shown this ex- tract all the fears and forebodings of the winter months became intensified. Not one word or line had reached him from Frances Morgan since the dismal evening of her short and sudden visit to the hospital. Not one mes- sage came, even when Freeman knew that letters had been received from the older Morgan by both General Thomas and by Colonel Rolfe. Fulmer, on his return to duty, had stopped to see him and to tell him, among other things, of a charming call he had paid to Mrs. and Miss Morgan, who were visiting friends at Nashville while Don was there detained. "I told them how de- lightfully you were looked after," said Fulmer, whereat Freeman could have clouted him. And now, in spite of the fact that Frances Morgan had once said to him she hoped she might never see Mr. Jack 248 The Rock of Chickamauga. Barbbur again, here was Mr. Jack Barbour prominent, if not preeminent, in the resciie of her beloved brother from a prison-train, a thing well calculated to modify the views of any woman whose possibly preferred adorer was being restored to health and strength through the as^s'i- duous ministrations of a dangerotlsly attractive rival: Was ever luck like this, said Freeman, in his lottery mo- ments and his secret heart. He had found comfort and solace in Kate Claiborne's presence, and when she held aloof had pursued her, and now, when it looked as though that luxury might cost him another far more de- sired, he raged at fate, or luck, or whatever he called it, instead of his own fatuity. And what made matters worse was the fact that now the Claibornes stood in graver need of his help and sym- pathy than ever before, or than ever he had stood In heed of theirs. Night and day armed sentries watched at the bedside of this stricken and fast- failing old soldier; and the daughter who so devotedly loved and nursed him could never see him a moment alone. Grave charges had accumulated, said those who knew charges that in- volved other and higher names, whispered they who sus- pected. "That old rip, Colonel Pop Eyes, is back from Wash- ington," said Captain Allis, bursting into the tent whereih he so long had run the regimental books. "I saw him at Old Rosy's this morning. Wonder what he'll have in pickle for you this time?" "What'd he have last time?" demanded Freeman. "Ruddy blocked it, whatever it was," said Allis. "The The Rock of Chickarriauga. 249 paper came to him, and he never even let me see it. He took it Up to Thomas, with Palmer's permission Palmer told me so and Pop and Ruddy both went to Old Rosy ('Twas thus irreverently we spoke of our elders and su- periors we who loved them much), and said thirigs. I gather from Palmer 'twas about some correspondence you were accused of aiding arid abetting between dis- loyal citizens and their friends in the rebel lines. You weren't to know anything about it until your recovery was assured. Who the devil is Cutler, that Rolfe should so seem to hate him? What's he got against Thomas? We all knew what he got from you, but that was open and aboveboard. Cutler strikes me as being some kind of a sneak." Freeman listened in deep distress of mind. It was as Claiborne had said, then. Those luckless letters had in- volved him, and his name had suffered. Both in love and war he was a loser. "Glad you don't play poker, Free- man," Rawson had half-ruefully said to him one day. "If there's any truth in an old saying, you'd be a sure win- ner," and even Rawson did not begin to know the truth. It was Rawson, indeed, who first suspected that old Cutler and the man O'Reilly had rummaged through the pockets of that water-logged overcoat, and that they knew what had become of the missing letters. It was Rawsofi who came perilously near suggesting as much to Colonel Rolfe the day of the recovery of Freeman's property. It was Rawson who first hinted it to Free- man, but, imbued with the West Point code of ethics, Freeman could not accept it as possible in a West Pointer, 250 The Rock of Chickamauga. forgetting, perhaps, that in time of war even that in- tangible and unwritten code might be ignored. Rawson had a level head on his young shoulders. He mightily liked his former fellow subaltern and tentmate. He, like Allis, had grown to have a deep respect and regard for the colonel, and both, somehow, had become imbued with the conviction that the "Old Man" and his new adju- tant both had enemies at home among the advisers of the governor of Illinois, enemies at headquarters among the advisers of General Rosecrans, and that, among the com- mon enemy out at the front toward Shelbyville, there were certain individuals inspired with personal animosity toward Freeman, for on this latter count something very curious had just come to light. Being short of cavalry, short of Spencer carbines for such cavalry as he had, and shorter still of influence as the spring wore on, General Rosecrans had been com- pelled of late to call on the infantry for much patrol and reconnaissance duty that properly belonged to their mounted comrades. One April morning "The Children of Israel," some nve hundred strong, were sent squashing away through a sea of mud, with orders to "feel" a clump of woods that lay a mile to the south of the picket- line. With incredible labor some light guns, that proved in such a wallow of mire intolerably heavy, had been hauled to the front and placed with their supporting in- fantry where they could be of use in case that suspicious grove proved a veritable hornets' nest. It would not do to let the Confederacy build a little fort right in our front, screened ever by those active, gray-jacketed riders The Rock of Chickamauga. 251 of theirs. It would be far easier to brush them out be- fore they had time to turn the timber into bristling abattis and log revetments. It fell to Palmer's lot to find this promising copse in his immediate front when the division occupied the long, low, timbered ridge in the general on- ward surge of the center, and Palmer wisely hit on Rolfe as the man to lead, and "The Children of Israel" as the men to explore it. For three nights the sentries at the extreme front had seen dancing lights about the grove, and for several days the field-glasses of the officers re- vealed the fact that somebody had been at work and that some few of the trees were already coming down. The guns, therefore, had been lugged to the front late the previous evening. Their supports lay back of them dur- ing the breathless night, and an hour before dawn the "Israelites," without qualm of conscience, had swallowed their pork, bread, and coffee, and then, falling into ranks, wended their muddy way in misty, ghostly column out through the grim line of guns, with their blanketed guardians sprawled about them, and presently, as the westward stars and the eastern heavens began to pale, they filed to their right, went stumbling along what had been a snake-fence, along the border of a plowed field, until clear of their silent and watchful comrades along the line, and here they successively bumped up against the four ahead, fronted to their left, and crouched or lay down, as suited their sensibilities, while the colonel and his adjutant slipped from saddle, the other field-offi- cers followed suit, and the animals were led well to the rear, while jn the dull gray gloom of the. earliest dawn, 252 The Rock of Chickamaiiga. Ruddy arid Freeman went crouchitig forward, only two soldiers in atteridance. Another minute, and they were out of sight. Ten, fifteen minutes the five hundred waited arid listened, the darkness slowly giving way to fairit, pallid light, with something almost like a feeble blush stealing upward from the far horizon. Little by little the dim upheaval of the distant Cumberlands loomed black against the dawn, and across the shadowy hollow to their front the straining eyes of the "Sheenies" could jtist dis- tinguish the outlines of the grove, when Freerrikn cariie springily back. Bellows, their major, ttiet and gruffly hailed him, and the line listened, breathless. "It's all right," those nearest could hear his ju'bilafit announcement, "Their lights are screened from the front, but we crept round till we could see them from the west. There's a big gang working iri there, arid the vedettes haven't seen or heard us. The colonel says to move to the right two hundred paces, then front and for- ward, and not to make a sound." Swiftly the word was muttered from the center to the wings "Face to the right. Trail arms. Silence and forward," and, like so many ghosts, the eight companies went groping away to the west, sturriblirig occasionally, but in dead silence, as a rule, for not even a canteen was carried. When the required distance had been gained td the right the guides halted at the whispered word, arid Freeman came swiftly back, seeing to it that the files closed up on the head of the column before again the regiment faced to its left. Then, with the ground ahead The Rpck of Chickamauga. 253 dimjy visible now, and the eastward sky shading from rose-pink to mauve, "Forward, guide center," followed, a.nd, with Freeman put in the lead, and the senior color- sergeant in his tracks, breaking step to deaden the sound, on they went again on, until three hundred paces were gained, and then the dark outlines of the grove loomed to the left front, and a little group square in front of the center, and then, with the captains on the line of the front rank, once again the murmurous "halt" was passed, and still not a challenge had been heard. Off to their left now, between them and the rose of the dawn, two or three horsemen could be plainly seen, wearily, patiently watching the northward approaches. Others, probably, should be somewhere thereabout, between them and th,e grove, or the low line of heights toward the distant camp- fires of Bragg ; but still not a challenge. And now Rolfe himself drew sword, pivoted his left company on its left guide until its line squarely faced southeastward, with the grove in front full a third of a mile away. Then the well-drilled battalion, without word of command audi- ble beyond a company front, "changed front forward to the left." Swiftly the captains rectified the alignment; again "The Children of Israel" knelt with beating hearts, for now the bleary lights could plainly be seen; the dull blows of the axmen be plainly heard; the grove itself stood almost clearly defined in the dim morning light. The captains gathered in silence about the colonel one moment: "Remember, now, not a sound, not a shot. Silence until I give the order, charge, then hurrah for all you're worth and rush in." On the run, the captains 2 $4 The Rock of Chickamauga. returned to their places. "Now, color-bearer, head for that tallest tree in the center," were Rolfe's words, cool and confident. Then: "Rise. Forward, guide center. March !" And with arms at the trail, where nervous rin- gers might not too readily reach the triggers, away went "The Children of Israel," with their ruddy-haired, mar- tial Moses striding in the lead, Ned Freeman at his back. Not forty paces had they gone, the lines of blue-gray overcoats almost blending with the mists of the morning, when up from a little hollow popped the head and shoul- ders of a man, behind the head of a startled horse. "Halt- whogoesthere !" came the long-expected, short-spoken challenge. "Go to hell!" was the answer. "Double- quick !" rang the order, and in almost intolerable eager- ness and joy the line burst into a triple-quick. "Bang!" went a carbine. Away tore a maddened horse toward the grove. "Turn out thah!" yelled the rider. "Bang! Bang!" went other shots, right and left, and away went more horses and horsemen, thundering for the grove, and still Ruddy danced joyously on in front of the center, never quickening the pace; they would need all their breath when they got there. Still sword-arm and left arm waved "Steady, steady," to his impatient followers. Men's hearts were bursting with mad eagerness. Men's voices were pent up in the swelling throats. Men's eyes were glaring on the signs of scurry, confusion, dismay among those smoke-wreathed cedars, for now half-blinded sentries, half-wakened guardians were wildly pulling trigger at the dim blue lines, with that unmistakable ban- ner dancing well out in front; and then, at last, over the The Rock of Chickamaiiga. 15$ rattle and sputter of small arms and the scurry of hoofs, clear and exultant, rang the order, "Charge !" and at the word a roar of cheers went skyward, and in mad race for the timber the "Sheenies" came bounding on. Away back of the northward ridge the half of Palmer's divis- ion had crept to the guns, and an echoing shout went thrilling across the sodden fields, and then with rush and scurry and fierce yelling and a startling clamor of mus- ketry the blue lines were swallowed up in the trees. A few horsemen could be seen tearing away toward the south ; eastward and westward along the front, singly and in pairs, gray- jacketed vedettes were circling madly about, signaling something amiss to the comrades far to the rear; and then, issuing from the northward edge of the grove, as the sputter of small arms died away, there came a motley array of dejected mortals, some still half- shrouded in blankets, some bareheaded, all disarmed and helpless a throng of three hundred prisoners of war, workmen and guards of the little redoubt, and behind them, driving steadily on, came Manning and Allis, with their companies, while, still farther away, faced to the still more distant foe, "The Children of Israel," in line of battle, their colors tipped by the first rays of the peep- ing sun, halted a while beyond the captured works as if to inquire if any one yonder had anything to say on the subject, and then, with still other groups in gray, guarded by assiduous attendants in blue, drifting in ahead of them, and a thousand or more of envious comrades ap- plauding their exploit, the "Sheenies" marched home- 256 The Hock of Chickamauga. ward, "faced by the rear ra,nk"; halted and fronted at the crest; dressed ranks deliberately; then stood at "in place, rest," and ried \o loo}< as though this sort of thing were an eyery-da,y occurrence, yet tnadly longing to cheer Colonel Ru4dy as he sheathed )iis s>vord and went over to greet Qeneraj Palmer. Then other details pame slpwly in, with surgeons, and stretcher-men, and afar pff the Southern Horse could be seen gathering and galloping b^ck to count their losses, and then there came quick word of command at the battery and a thud of ra. turners, and a breaking away from the front of the black rrjuzzles ; and then, flash, roar, and spream, as round after round of $hr a P n el wa.s sent bursting over the smoking timber, whereat gauntleted fists were shaken, and there was more scattering of horses an,d hprsemen. A n 4 then, as "cease firing" sounded and the brigade staff went on taking stock pf casualties^ a man in blue stood, note-booji in hand, Iqpking cqnQusly dpwn at a scpwling, hlack-eye^l, blacjc-hairefil youth in gold-lace4 gray a cjaqdy officer, one could see at ^ glance. A languid yawn, a shrug of the ladylike shoulders, a supercilious uplifting of the eyebro\ys, then in Freqph, "Anatole, see what is wanted," whereat another dapper little Gaul, in odd combination of Confederate jacket and Zouave balloons, responded : "It is the Captain Millaudorj, aide-de-camp, an4 I a,m Zouave Mercier, orderly." "Let him answer for himself," was \he sharp rehufce of the staff-officer, indignant at such cavaljer airs. "He The Rock of Chickamauga. 257 isn't such a damned fool that he doesn't know his own name." "He's worse than a damned fool," burst in the major, black-browed and raging. "He's a damned scoundrel. He shot Ned Freeman after surrendering his sword J" CHAPTER XXII. "That man can no more get an order to the front with- out getting sick than Freeman can get into a fight with- out getting hit." The man of whom the major of the th Illinois thus getfully spoke was Bostwick, of the next brigade, who sought the hospital with some mys- terious ailment when the division marched for Bradyville, leaving its wounded once more in Murfreesboro, Ned Freeman with them, and Freeman was a much disgusted adjutant. Honorable as wounds may be, there are times when they are as unwelcome as painful, and this time Freeman's wound was both. It was as the burly major had bluntly put it. The young Creole, whether by ac- cident, design, or mere nervousness, had actually shot the adjutant of the th Illinois after formally, in token of surrender, tendering his sword. Bounding in among the very foremost, sword in one hand, revolver in the other, Freeman had felled one half- roused antagonist with a whack of the blade, and pulled up suddenly at sight of another, a slender youth, who, vociferating shrill commands to the fugitives in a curious mixture of Grenoble French and gulf-coast American, was vainly striving to hold the startled, stampeded guard to a stand-up fight. Cursing them volubly for cowardice, he turned to do his own part like a little man, and found himself looking into the muzzles of three or four Spring- fields, with a panting, grinning son of Illinois at the butt The bullet tore its way up Freeman's extended arm. Page 259 The Rock of Chickamauga. 159 of each, and a tall young officer in their midst. Little game-cock that he was, he couldn't whip six times his weight in shanghais, and in the dim, uncertain light low- ered his blade in the graceful salute of the old salle d'armes, then extended its hilt foremost. Returning his pistol to receive it, Freeman advanced a step. Instantly the little Creole recoiled, with something like a cattish scream of rage, and as his revolver leaped from the holster it flashed, and the bullet tore its way up Free- man's extended arm. For a moment the wounded officer could hardly restrain his men. Then, when his stern order to do their prisoner no harm was fully understood, contemptuously turned his back and sought the surgeon. An artery was grazed, the bone was nipped, and he was out of the fight. Yes, and for many a day. Out of the fight and into his old familiar room in Wharton's "Hotel," with the blue- coated guards on the galleries and the garden walk, where now the buds were gone and the blossoms were opening, sweet and fragrant, in the almost summer sun- shine, and when he asked for the Claibornes Wharton sadly shook his head. "It is. a question of only a few weeks or days," he said, "and I lie to that poor girl every time I see her." It was a week before Freeman saw her. His arm had been saved. Despite old Riggs's dictum that the chain- saw was all that could save him, Wharton had saner views, and prevailed; but it proved a cruel, tormenting wound ; kept him in pain and bed well-nigh a month ; and 260 The Rock of Chickamauga. when at last he rode forward to rejoin, it was with an elbow probably stiffened for life. But meantime other things were happening at or near the "Hotel Wharton," wherein our impatient hero was deeply concerned. Other things, graver and most mo- mentous matters, were happening in the Army of the Cumberland. Let us speak first of these, for they were of solemn import. Far in the East, along the Rappahan- nock, Lee had shaken loose from Hooker's fangs and was striding for the fords of the Potomac. Far to the West, Grant had a death-grip on Pemberton at Vicks- burg, and while the armies of the Potomac and Tennessee were thus facing tremendous things, the Army of the Cumberland, said its detractors both in and out of the war office, was doing nothing. The word had gone forth that no matter what the lack of cavalry or carbines ; no matter what the roads, rivers, obstacles, or armies, Rose- crans must shove ahead and keep Bragg busy. That he was keeping him abundantly busy without shoving ahead seemed patent to no one. Corps and division commanders united with Rosecrans in the opinion that until the roads dried and the mountain rains ceased, advance was im- possible, and it was still raining in torrents along in June. But the fiat went forth, and so did the army, bat- tling like fury at Liberty Gap, grabbing all Joe Wheeler's guns and most of his men at Duck River, and gradually driving Bragg into his works at Tullahoma, which on the ist of July that astute leader abandoned without a fight, and lured his opponents on to Chattanooga and the per- ilous beyond. The Rock of Chickamauga. 261 And then, while at last the friends of the Union had found cause for hope and rejoicing, and all over the North the guns were booming, flags were flying, and men and women were thanking God for the news from Get- tysburg and Vicksburg; while the armies of Meade and Grant, the Potomac and the Tennessee, were lauded to the skies (and deserved every cheer they got, for they had had, God knows, hard knocks in plenty), people at large could not much be blamed for forgetting perhaps people in the war department might be excused for prodding the general then commanding in the Middle West, and his valiant if often storm-swept, storm-bound army. Be that as it may, the North had hardly tired of shouting for Grant and Meade when Union pulses leaped again at the tidings that Bragg had loosened his hold on the mountain passes; that "Old Rosy," sharp at his heels, had scaled the Cumberlands and pitched his camps along the Tennessee. Then, while all was again "quiet along the Potomac," and while the Mississippi for the first time "flowed un- vexed to the sea," and the armies East and West took a rest for the time being and seemed to say, "Your turn now," to the Army of the Cumberland; then, com- plaisantly, perhaps, our vigilant general-in-chief at the war department relaxed his watchfulness over the suc- cessful forces, and when Rosecrans sent his columns across the beautiful, winding, mountain river, and at last the stars and stripes waved from one grand ridge to another in northern Georgia ; and Bragg, maneuvered out of Chattanooga, fell away into the Chickamauga Valley 262 The Rock of Chickamauga. to the east, somebody went to sleep in front of Washing- ton; but it wasn't Lee or Longstreet. For, while "Old Rosy" was concentrating his scattered columns on what had been Bragg's forty-five thousand, intending to smash him then and there, the supposedly defeated and dispir- ited Army of Northern Virginia detached an entire wing ; sent Longstreet, with his trained war-dogs, speeding hot- foot to the far southwest; while at the same time John- ston, with some fifteen thousand men from over in Mis- sissippi, had crept round from the south, all to the end that "Rosy's" sixty thousand encircling warriors found encircling no longer a possibility. Our old friends of Palmer's division, now of Crittenden's fated corps, had little idea, as they camped at Rossville, at that soon-to-be- famous dip in Mission Ridge, that, so far from trying to sidle off to Atlanta, Bragg's reenforced army was placidly reposing in the eastward valley, across that twist- ing, tortuous stream, the Chickamauga, waiting to "give the hand," as say the French, "the glad hand," as say our college-bred, to Longstreet when he should come, and battle to "Old Rosy." A splendid chance had been af- forded Bragg of smashing our widely dispersed divisions in detail, but for once the Southern combinations, gen- erally so effective, would not work. Perhaps the god of battles meant that nothing should mar the stunning force of the blow en masse when finally it fell. It was mid-September, hot, dry, and dusty, as the spring had been wet and dismal, when Ned Freeman re- appeared at the camp of "The Children of Israel," and Colonel Ruddy, now not only topped but bearded in The Rock of Chickamauga. 263 auburn, gave him joyous welcome, while Rawson, long weeks acting-adjutant, prepared to turn over his desk and saddle to the adjutant in esse, but that change was not to be. Momentous matters had been chronicled in the record of events on the regimental muster-roll since the June morning the "Sheenies" jumped that little hornets' nest in front of Palmer's line, capturing two guns (old bronze six-pounders, badly balloted, but sounding well when saluting, or mentioned in the reports), twenty- seven staff and regimental officers, and over three hun- dred men, together with a vehement little Gallic aide-de- camp, who, it was learned, had been spending two or three days sketching the positions and mapping the line. Momentous matters had come to pass in the cases of even so inconspicuous a person as a lieutenant of volunteers of the armies of the Union. It seems that tentative had come from General Bragg proposals for exchange of prisoners. It seems that friends of the little lieutenant of the Crescent Zouaves, A. D. C, and acting-engineer officer, were very desirous of tender- ing a strapping Hoosier as Roland for their Oliver, the idea of a Millaudon, of Louisiana, shivering in a Chicago stockade being especially repulsive. Brave as is the Gal- lic bantam, he is not robust, and so it was with "P'tit Pierre"; but Northern sensibilities proved adamant. So far from permitting the exchange of Lieutenant Millau- don, there was likelihood, said the commissioner, of his being brought to trial for an attack of despicable treach- ery shooting his captor after having, in token of sub- mission, tendered his sword, and there was consternation 264 The Rock of Chickamauga. in the Louisiana brigade, and in all black-eyed Breckin- ridge's division, where the snappy little swordsman had many a friend. There was gossip about Murfreesboro, where, pending decision of the matter, the young Creole was kept under constant guard, to the effect that, with a dying father to nurse and cheer, a certain daughter of the South was frequently an applicant for permission to see this particu- lar captive. The post commander's explanation, that the two were first cousins, that the girl's mother was a Mil- laudon, was not at first made known, except to his su- periors. When later put in circulation it bore an odd addendum, for which "Doc" Wharton must bear a cer- tain onus of responsibility. He let it out, and there was much to warrant the belief, that she and Ned Freeman, enemies-at-law, were lovers-in-fact, although something had occurred to estrange them. Kate Claiborne came not once to Freeman's bedside during his first three weeks of fevered suffering. She came not, in fact, until Wharton went and begged it of her, and at sight of the patient, white, pinched, and hol- low face, the misery in her eyes was pathetic. By this time Miss Claiborne must have realized there was no vestige of hope for her father's recovery. The knowledge of his condition was all that stood between him and the wrath of the Union government. It was this consciousness, coupled with her anxiety on behalf of her young kinsman, let us reason, that caused her excess of woe, yet who could have seen her face, when timidly she looked on Freeman, and not read still further reason ! The Rock of Chickamauga. 265 The ice once broken, her resolution or his prohibition, or whatever it was that estranged them once set at naught, she had come again, twice, at Freeman's earnest plea, and finally there came a day after he had been sit- ting up a week or so, and could once more wear a uni- form, when the attendants helped him to a waiting ambu- lance, and, with the surgeons close at hand, he was driven to the office of the prison. A solemn little gathering was this that met his eyes. At the official table sat the general commanding the sub- district, with two of his staff. The commander of the prison-guard, a major of infantry, stood a little to his left, his adjutant by his side. A sergeant, with a brace of sentries, leaned on their rifles at the doorway, while half across the little room, very pale and looking very young and motherless, was seated a youth in Confederate uniform, neat and natty in spite of the month of incar- ceration. On his right, almost in loco parentis, sat Aunt Marie. On his left, pallid, wistful, appealing, sat Cousin Kate. And into this presence was Freeman ushered, escorted to a seat, and him the general most courteously ad- dressed. To men as often hit as Freeman other men ac- corded the repute of much fighting, and the respect thus due. "I shall detain you as short a while as possible, Mr. Freeman," said the senior present. "The reports of Colonel Rolfe and Major Bellows, and, it was said, your own words, accused this prisoner of war of having treacherously shot you as you advanced to receive his 266 The Rock of Chickamauga. tendered sword. You recall the circumstances, do you not?" "Distinctly, sir." "The officer had extended his sword, hilt foremost; you took it to be in token of surrender?" "Certainly, sir." "And then what happened ?" "The officer suddenly sprang a step backward, whipped his pistol from the holster; it was discharged, and I was wounded." "You say it was discharged. The report would indi- cate, and your own words and conduct at the time suggest the claim, that he took quick, but deliberate, aim, and fired. That it was, in fact, deliberate treachery." "It did look that way at the time, sir." "It is stated that you had had previous acquaintance, and a serious quarrel, with the prisoner, and that he had made effort to renew it. Is that true ?" There was painful silence for a moment in the little room. Kate Claiborne had turned suddenly pale, and now sat gazing at Freeman, with distress in her eyes. Freeman himself changed color, though there was but little to change. Who could have known and told of this? At last the witness spoke : "True, yes, sir; but, in spite of that, I have changed my views entirely. On my honor, sir, I believe this was an accident." That proved the sensation of the impromptu little trial. The general looked at first astonished, then a bit relieved ; The Rock of Chickamauga. 267 then, with a light of comprehension dawning in his eyes, glanced from Miss Claiborne's bowed and beautiful head to the now faintly flushing face of the tall, young soldier, whose left arm was still in its sling. "No one certainly is more intimately concerned no one had better opportunity at the time of judging, and at the time you seemed to have had no doubt. Pardon my saying, sir, that you must have had grave reasons for so radical a change of front." "Grave, possibly, general," said Freeman, his lips twitching a bit, but his blue eyes steady ; "but good and sufficient." "Good I should have said myself," answered the gen- eral, a smile playing about his lips, "and sufficient to re- lieve this young gentleman of a most serious imputation, and I shall so report. The guard may withdraw with the prisoner." But the prisoner had risen. His sallow face had turned red, then yellow-white ; his kindling black eyes, in some- thing like astonishment, sought the face of the officer who had so suffered at his hands, but a gesture had called that officer to the general's side, and there was no return glance. One moment "P'tit Pierre" stood trembling and irresolute, then, recollecting himself, saluted hurriedly and, with Aunt Marie's arm about him, turned and marched unsteadily from the room. But Kate Claiborne, her eyes welling with tears, turned at the threshold and looked long at the tall and soldierly form in blue, standing there in respectful silence, listen- ing to the general's low-spoken words. 268 The Rock of Chickamauga. "Simply another link in the chain of evidence against him," said the veteran staff-officer, to whom the provost marshal-general at Chattanooga a fortnight later was re- lating this dramatic incident. "There's a coterie of Thomas's kith and kin to whom the rules and articles of war cannot be made to apply for lack of proof that Thomas's immediate followers refuse to furnish. Wait, now, and see what we'll hear from Washington." But matters of greater import were vexing both head- quarters at Washington and headquarters here in the field. Moreover, it had been found worse than useless to approach "Old Rosy" with a story of any kind reflecting on his lion-hearted second in command. Whether in vic- tory or defeat, whether in success or in dismay, the com- mander of that sore-tried army, Buell or Rosecrans, had learned one thing there was no shaking the absolute fidelity and integrity of George H. Thomas. There was another scene enacted at or about the "Hotel Wharton" old Cutler was not slow to hear of and heed, for it came through the same unimpeachable channel, and interested him quite as keenly as the news that Bragg was over toward Lafayette, and being reen- forced by rail from the South. There had come a day when Wharton could no longer say "hope" to Katherine Claiborne, for the father was sinking fast. There had come a day when the tender- hearted surgeon led her forth into the garden and bade her sit and rest and take the air, while her father fitfully slept. Respectfully, in soldier sympathy, the guard had made way for her, and one of the men had run over The Rock of Chickamauga. 269 and fetched an easy chair from the porch at Freeman's open door. The mail had just come, and the lieutenant was deep in his letters at the table within. Barely had they seated her, and Wharton was intently studying her sweet, but mournful, face, when he was startled by a shout of his name. Freeman, in much excitement, came bursting from his doorway, waving a letter over his head. "Doctor, listen !" he cried. "Now, you've got to let me go ! I'm aide-de-camp to Thomas himself, and he wants me there instanter !" But Wharton turned his back on the swift-coming soldier. His hands, his services were needed here. Miss Claiborne at the sound had simply swooned away. That night late she was led a second time, and for the last, from her father's bedside, sobbing her heart out, yet sustained. The spirit of the veteran soldier had loosed its earthly trammel. The fond old father was lost to her for all, but a strong, young arm encircled the slender waist ; a thin, white hand clung firmly to her own, and the bonny head of the sorrowing girl was bowed on a shoul- der in the Union blue. CHAPTER XXIII. "Every time Freeman gets back he is glummer than the last," said the major. And indeed the new aide-de- camp's looks gave warrant to the major's words. He had dismounted for a short visit to his former comrades, when returning to his chief, after a long day in saddle. He was not yet restored to his wonted strength, and he had mental ills of which he could not speak, and that told more than did the wounds upon his physical condi- tion. He had been urgently recommended to the gov- ernor by Colonel Rolfe for promotion to captaincy, vice a company commander whose resignation had been ac- cepted "for the good of the service," and, though General Palmer himself had warmly indorsed the letter, and Gen- eral Thomas had concurred, the promotion went to Lieu- tenant Wells, whose name had not been mentioned. Then Captain Manning accepted the lieutenant-colonelcy of a new regiment being raised at home, and Rolfe was sure that now there could be no denying Freeman's rights. Yet there came a vague, ambiguous letter from his ex- cellency's private secretary to the effect that in view of opposition on the part of the company, and other mat- ters brought to his attention, his excellency could not see his way to obliging Colonel Rolfe as suggested. And this was mid-September, and here was Bragg with a big army right in their front at Lafayette, a battle im- minent, and no telling when it would be possible to get The Rock of Chickamauga. 271 at the "matters" referred to. As for opposition of the company, Rolfe swore stoutly that there was nothing of the kind. Non-commissioned officers and privates, they would welcome Freeman to the captaincy. What they feared was that he would prefer to remain with General Thomas on the duties to which he had just been assigned. So much for his professional vexings. The personal worries were worse. Not for months, even after her brother's rescue by Wheeler's troopers from captivity, had Freeman heard from Frances Morgan. True, they had parted in anger; they had met again, if only for a moment, under circumstances that pointed to tender rela- tions with Katherine Claiborne, and then Fulmer had seen Miss Morgan during his blissful ten days' leave, and doubtless had given her glowing accounts of Freeman's convalescence, with especial reference to the fair young nurse. And while nothing had come to Freeman from Miss Morgan, not a little had he heard about her. Louisville was very gay, efen through the stifling heat of that sum- mer of '62, and in Louisville Miss Morgan had spent three delirious weeks, the guest of a most distinguished family, and there had she feasted casually, and there, it must be owned, flirted conspicuously officers going back to glory at the front being objects of her liveliest interest. All that old talk of her engagement to Jack Barbour must have been nonsense. All that talk about Ned Free- man's devotions while camped at Crab Orchard was idle now. If ever Miss Fan had been impressed by the at- tentions of that tall, blue-eyed, young officer, she had The Rock of Chickamauga. obviously gotten bravely over it. Why, if she was not actually engaged to that handsome fellow Clayton, of Sherman's staff ("He was daft about her and spent seven of his ten days' leave in lavish devotion at her feet when he ought to have been at home at Cincinnati"), it is be- cause she had really lost her heart to handsome Frank McKee, major of Kentucky cavalry. All this did Louis- ville girls write to Fulmer, and other friends at the front, and then there was that gentle-mannered, brown-bearded, dignified aide-de-camp whom Thomas had chosen after Stone River, a Western man of Eastern birth. The girls made much of him while he was in Kentucky, and wrote much to him now that he was away, and all these talks had come sifting through the knot-holes and crevices of the "Hotel Wharton" while Freeman lingered there in hampered convalescence. And then, if it were Miss Morgan's deliberate purpose to give Ned Freeman to know she cared not a rap for him, here within sound of his voice sat a girl sorely in need of some one to cheer and strengthen her, a girl who had been tenderness and sympathy itself in her guarded association with him, a girl gentle born and gently bred ; a girl sweet, cultured, and refined, in spite of the poverty of her late surroundings; a girl who had been wooed by Frances Morgan's own brother, but had not been won ; a girl bowed by grief and anxiety about her dying father, and yet singing for him, smiling for him, cheering him with patience and devotion to the very limit of her strength. And so there had come the day when she had fainted at the abrupt announcement that her soldier The Rock of Chickamauga. 273 friend and patient was going at once to the front, and, though she had held aloof from him, her sudden pros- tration told a story she would have died rather than reveal. And then had come, last scene of all, the death- parting with the father she loved, and who was there to lead her, sobbing, away to strive to cheer, comfort, and console but Edgar Freeman ? As Wharton put it, "What kind of a man would Ned Freeman have been if he hadn't done what he did?" which, it seems, was to whisper words in which love and tenderness were linked with sympathy, and even when her heart is well-nigh broken perhaps it is sweeter then than at any other time a woman loves to believe that she is deeply loved. And now, somewhere over among those wooded ridges and deep valleys to the southeast, the Louisiana brigade they had met at Murfreesboro was still wearing on the arm and sword-hilt the badge of soldier mourning for Roderick Claiborne, of whose death they had learned but the fortnight previous. Somewhere, far to the south, under the live-oaks or among the cypress, the mortal re- mains of this sorrowing old soldier had been laid to rest, and the Millaudons had opened their hearts and home to the bereaved and devoted daughter, little dreaming as yet that her own heart had been left beyond the Ten- nessee, that her hand was pledged to a soldier in Union blue, riding in the train of the sturdiest of the defenders of the stars and stripes, the Virginian who had risen su- perior to Virginia tenets and traditions, and acknowl- edged a higher duty to the nation that had schooled him for its service. 174 Th e Rock of Chickamauga. Ten days now ten momentous days had Ned Free- man ridden in close attendance on his great leader, the man on whom the whole Army of the Cumberland seemed to have pinned its faith. For nearly a week his duties .had been semi-confidential in nature, writing from dicta- tion or copying letters, orders, or instructions under the general's eyes, while other aides and orderlies went gal- loping hither and yon as bearers of despatches. Day and night there had been swift coming and going. Only a few miles to the front the long bulwark of Pigeon Moun- tain loomed against the eastward sky, and beyond it, camping about Lafayette, the army of the South was daily gaining in strength and numbers, and at any mo- ment might come striding through the Gap to smite the still . scattered divisions of Rosecrans, and beat them in detail. Then at last the keen-eyed leaders of the cavalry warned "Old Rosy" that Bragg was on the move, and it suddenly became apparent that, so far from heading southward, he was marching north once more. The plan was patent in a flash. He aimed to throw himself be- tween Rosecrans and Chattanooga and to retake the prize. Then came tidings that McCook was closing in from Alpine. Then Thomas, with his four divisions under his own wing, turned swiftly away to Crawfish Springs, and there how often Freeman had to note in orders and despatches it was the afternoon of the i8th of Sep- tember that word came in from Wilder on the far left flank, down-stream to the northeast, that Bragg's fellows in force were slashing at the crossing of Chickamauga The Rock of Chickamauga. 275 Creek that unless heavily reenforced he could not hope to hold them, and that both by Reed's and Alexander's bridges, and the several deep but practicable fords, the gray columns would be in force on the western bank before another day. If so, the clinch would come per- haps before Rosecrans could possibly be ready. For nearly sixty hours there had been no rest for Free- man, and little for anybody, yet through it all what im- pressed him most was the fact that, no matter how anxious other officers might appear, his general seemed ever serene, tranquil, and unafraid. The news that Bragg had moved northward was in itself ominous. It meant that with the reenforcements already up from the South he felt strong enough to turn upon the skilled antagonist who had maneuvered him out of Chattanooga, strong enough to interpose between him and this most important base and center, attack him from the north and beat him into the mountains; then leisurely turn and reoccupy his point of vantage. Little did Rosecrans know that Bragg had still greater reason for confidence that in moving northward only a dozen miles he was meeting the first arrivals of Longstreet's corps of veterans from the bat- tle-fields of Virginia, perhaps the finest fighters of the South. Hurrying by rail, screened by the long, parallel curtains of mountain range, the leading division was already up from Ringgold, the others would be in touch by dawn of the coming day, and before another night- fall Thomas was destined at last to confront in battle the soldiery of his own State Virginian was to meet iVirginian. 176 The Rock of Chickamauga. And so it happened that along in the evening, wearied by long hours in the saddle, miles of riding through tortuous roads blocked with marching men, straining wagon-teams, and lumbering guns, Freeman had rolled himself in his blanket, with his booted feet to the camp- fire, his head pillowed on his saddle, and Kate Clai- borne's last letter to him, ere she passed beyond the lines, nestling in the heart pocket of his worn uniform frock. Not for days had he written her so much as a line. In- deed, how could it have gone to her had he written ? Not for hours until now had he had time to think of her. Now he was feverish with anxiety and unrest. It was almost the first time he had been alone. The aides had been sleeping two in a tent just now, and that had thrown him unwillingly with Fulmer, whom he alternately liked and hated liked when the soldier was uppermost, hated when he was simply the society chatterbox. At this halt even the tents had not been pitched, and Fulmer, too, was snoozing under the headquarters' wagon. The gen- eral, with Von Schrader and Willard, was gone some- where for consultation with the general-in-chief. The rearmost division had hardly unslung its blankets and started its little cook-fires in the timber, when, at that same slow, steady trot, the bearded corps commander,' his hat pulled down about his eyebrows, and his little escort trailing at his horse's heels, came riding in from the highway, and men who long had studied, and well had grown to know his face, were up and clustering about him in the flickering firelight, Freeman joining them. "We must move on at once," was the quiet announcement, The Rock of Chickamauga. 277 and that meant "Everybody up" again, though most of them had been up and doing all the livelong day. Not for another hour had Freeman chance to see or speak with his general. In quick succession the orders were going, and it was his lot to be sent spurring in search of a leading division. Pictures of soldiers and gentlemen were these who seconded Thomas in that un- conquerable corps : Baird, courtly, courteous, punctilious to a fault; Brannan, his mate in stature and soldierly bearing, ever dignified, ever precise; Reynolds, soldier of the old school, steeped in the traditions of the old army, all three West Pointers ; and with them Negley, a typical volunteer, a Pennsylvania Yankee, with a love for sol- diering. First to reach the rendezvous, the latter had been sent in toward the stream to find and relieve our old friend Palmer, and send him on to join his own corps commander, Crittenden, somewhere beyond the mill of Lee and Gordon. It was with the three West Pointers Freeman had to do, and never did he forget the close at- tention, the prompt, cheery, soldierly response of each to the orders he bore them. Away they led their weary, yet willing men, striding forth into the starlit night, Baird at the head of column, the little brigade of regulars, under their tall, gaunt Wolverine of a leader, foremost in the marching column ; Brannan's big division, well closed upon their comrades of Baird's, Reynolds bringing up the rear. Silently, sturdily they trudged on, hour after hour, halting a few minutes at a time to hear the report of hur- rying scouts, or clear the blockaded road. On past shadowy field and ghostly orchard, and little farmhouses 278 The Rock of Chickamauga. at long intervals, on through dusty lane or muddy branch, filling their canteens at the little brooks that, tumbling from the low ridge at their left, went coursing down to join the winding, mist- wreathed, lazy current, slowly creeping through the low ground to their right ; on they marched, for matters of grave import had come to the general's ears, and "Old Rosy," knowing not a moment should be lost, had turned as ever to the stanchest, most reliable of his great supporters. "Bragg has done his best to beat us to the Gap," said he. "You and yours must beat him off." Therefore the long hours of march by starlight. There- fore the sleepless vigil to the distant dawn. Therefore the loyal, strenuous, unsparing effort to sustain their leaders in the supreme moment before the battle, and at last, just as the pallid light of coming day shone faintly through the scattered tree tops, the muttered "Halt" came, thrice welcomed, down the wearied column, and the word came back from Baird's division that his flag was planted on the Lafayette Road, and in front of the Kelly farmhouse. The road to Rossville Gap was barred to Bragg. Right and left the battalions broke ranks and down dropped the sturdy marchers to seek new strength of mother earth, and then came eager conference with cavalry officers who all day long had been striving to impede and slacken the gray column, pounding at the bridges and deploying along the steep banks of the stream, and Freeman listened with tingling ears to the tales of Wilder's stout resistance and its final result. The Rock of Chickamauga. 279 Overpowering numbers had thrown him back. Whole divisions of infantry had crossed at Reed's and Alexan- der's, but, said an aide, instead of shoving west to the Gap, they wheeled southward, up-stream. "They are all across those flats down yonder now." Close to the Widow Glenn's, the grave-faced general had dismounted a moment, as his rearmost division passed him by. These persistent tales of the troopers could indicate but one thing that Bragg, his old-time captain, must have gathered strength. Confidence and numbers must indeed be great that he should dare throw his divisions across in hopes of rolling up the Union left, as he had tumbled over McCook's unprotected right at Stone's River. Wilder himself Thomas needed to see, and Wilder unrolled himself from a cocoon of wool and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and gave soldier wel- come to the commander of the center. The dawn had broadened to the flush of coming day. The light was stronger as it fell on groups of sleeping men and tethered horses. Among the former, closely guarded by blear-eyed troopers with drawn revolvers, half a dozen graycoats lay huddled together. "Prison- ers ?" queried Thomas. "Yes, sir. Most of 'em from Hood's division." "Hood's division ! You don't mean " "Clear from Virginia, sir. I questioned every man of them separately, and they all tell the same story, straight as a string. They say Longstreet's whole corps has come by rail. Four of those fellows we nabbed at dusk out to- ward Alexander's Bridge. That young officer yonder," The Rock of Chickamauga. and he pointed to a tall young gentleman in new gray uniform, standing mournfully by the camp-fire, "we ran on right down here by the Thedford place, not ten min- utes ago. They are across above and below us both." Silently Thomas turned and looked, then rode quietly over and by a gesture summoned the prisoner to his side ; Freeman following, looked on in fascination. Silently the young officer obeyed. One quick, searching glance he shot at the aide-de-camp, then stood looking steadily, yet with strange, half-repressed emotion, up into the bearded face. "You are of General Hood's division?" asked the general, "No, General Thomas," was the quiet reply, and at sound of his voice, the general eyed him suddenly, even sternly, and Freeman bent eagerly forward in saddle. Somewhere he had heard those tones before. "I am just from Grade's brigade, Preston's division. But Hood is here most of Longstreet's corps for that matter." "I should have looked for that," was presently the grave rejoinder. "Mr. Freeman, escort this gentleman to General Rosecrans and then join me later." And so it happened that presently Freeman found him- self riding back to the Widow Glenn's, with the tall young Confederate slowly trudging beside him. The next thing he noticed was that the prisoner limped painfully. "Are you hurt?" asked Freeman. "Horse fell on me when they shot him," was the an- swer, and by the flickering light of a camp-fire, Freeman saw his face was white and distorted with pain. Dis- The Rock of Chickamauga. 281 mounting at once and disregarding the murmured pro- test, Freeman almost lifted his prisoner into saddle, poured him a stiff drink from his saddle-flask, then led the tired horse along. "We'll have a doctor look at it in a moment," said he, and as luck would have it, the doctor was on hand before the general could see the prisoner. "Will you have an- other before I go?" asked Freeman, again producing the flask. "You are most kind, suh; but I'm robbing you, am I not?" "You need it. That's an ugly twist, and the doctor was none too gentle. Here, take the flask. I can get another, probably," and with that Freeman turned and was gone, followed by a lingering look from the dark- eyed prisoner, now seated on the stoop of the little farm- house, with grave eyes bent upon him. What would "Old Rosy" say to such news as this ? It was no campaign lie told only for effect, and Thomas knew it. Bragg indeed had reason to be bold and confi- dent, with Lee's strong right arm Longstreet close at hand to sustain him, with at least two of Lee's veteran divisions at his back. "Much good has it done us," as said a division commander, in front of Snodgrass Hill, an hour later, "much good has it done us to maneuver Bragg out of Chattanooga. While we've been maneu- vering, using up our men at the rate of two hundred a day, he's been giving his fellows the best kind of a rest and getting them the best kind of reenforcements. We are nowhere near as strong in numbers or condition as 282 The Rock of Chickamauga. we were three weeks ago. Bragg is nearly twice as strong in both." The warning glance of a staff-officer, the elaborate salute by which he strove to catch the eye of his impul- sive chief were both too late. Still in saddle, vigilant, yet calm and cheery, Thomas had suddenly joined the group, had heard probably almost every word. He uttered no rebuke ; he looked in no wise rebukeful. All he said that might savor of censure was simply this: "Then it be- hooves us to fight all the harder." CHAPTER XXIV. Over the eastward heights the sun of mid-September had climbed, hot, unveiled, and strong. Eight o'clock had come and yet, beyond an occasional shot at the unseen outposts, no further sound of impending battle. Down in the lowlands, from the fringing timber two miles to the east, a bluish-gray column of smoke was drifting slowly aloft, rising from smoldering embers, all that was left of Reed's Bridge. All over the lowlands, close to the tortu- ous, hidden stream, dust-clouds hovered about the tree tops, telling of marching columns ; but, only by pushing out through the woodland lanes, or creeping along the hedge-rows and the wrecks of "snake-fence," could one catch sight of the Southern lines, and more than a peep was not permitted. All along the front stretched that im- penetrable, yet almost invisible screen of skirmishers, that resisted every effort to "feel" the battle ranks. With the deliberation of assured success, Bragg's division chiefs were forming for the attack that was planned to roll the Union left back upon its supposed center at the mill. They had only just begun to learn that by marching all the night long, Major Slow Trot had seized the higher ground toward Mission Ridge, and held the Rossville Road. They had not been told to look for more than a cavalry screen, and Hood, brushing that away, in the late afternoon, had gone on southward and into bivouac on the flats around the Park and Thedford farms ; where at 284 The Rock of Chickamauga. dawn of this eventful day his lines almost confronted those of his comrade Preston; where the brigade of Gracie, crossing at Dalton's Ford, had lurked fireless in the shadows throughout the night. "That man's father and mine," said Thomas, to his young aide, "hailed from almost the same county in the Old Dominion. The Gracies were Petersburgers who moved North years be- fore the war." And now, soon after eight, comes Colonel Dan Mc- Cook, swift-spurring from the front, and full to the brim of the fighting spirit of his famous tribe. Afar to the right flank the south, his brother, the burly major-gen- eral who has been in dire peril of being cut off, is speed- ing his divisions northwestward from McLemore's Cove. But Sheridan, at least, has many a weary mile to trudge before he can reach the comrade corps, already facing the enemy in line of battle. Here at the extreme left, the north, Colonel Dan had been "spiering" about, since dawn, well to the rear of the sweeping lines of Walker, and there, farther still to the right rear of Hood's strong division full two miles to the north of where Buckner is ranging his dusty columns into line with Hood he has located a single brigade of "Johnnies" down in the woods by the burning bridge. Colonel Dan wants a brigade or two of infantry to go in and gobble them. 'Tis a chance not to be lost. So while waiting for his chief to close and form the columns of Crittenden and McCook to the south of him, Thomas orders big, soldierly John Brannan forward, pointing one brigade along the road to Alex- ander's Bridge, while two others, Croxton in front, push The Rock of Chickamauga. 285 ahead through the woods toward Reed's in search of this stray detachment ; and, at ten o'clock by the watch, Crox- ton's men come into view, only pistol-shot distance, of a savage little command, rudely wakened from a much- needed snooze, and fighting mad in consequence. The lines grappled like bulldogs on the instant, and the back- ing and filling and maneuvering of the six weeks gone is all a thing of the past. In all its furious import, Chickamauga bloodiest battle of the West and well-nigh of the war had burst in thunder that goes rolling south- ward toward the listening lines, and echoing northward along the rocky barrier that hems the "Gateway of the Gods." In all the shifting fortunes of that fearful day, it was Ned Freeman's lot to bear ceaseless and stirring part. He had slept not a wink since the cat-nap at Crawfish Springs, hut his leonine chief had slept as little, nor seemed to heed it. Tackled in flank by those blue war- dogs, as he was marching southwest across the fields, Walker, of Georgia ("Little Big Man" of the South, than whom braver soldier never fought nor fell) found himself compelled to turn and beat off these unlooked-for assailants, and Bragg, waiting at the Thedford crossing of the stream behind the dense lines of Hood and Buck- ner, waiting only for the word that the latter's formation was complete, to order the grand assault, was compelled to stop and think, then send aid. The. battle he planned to begin right here along the Lafayette Road, 'twixt Widow Glenn's and Gordon's Mill, had broken out full two miles to the north. "Old Rosy" had stolen a march on him. 286 The Rock of Chickamauga. Thomas, his old-time senior first lieutenant, was his no longer. Loyally, stanchly, as he had ever backed his grim battery commander in the Mexican War days, even when better judgment told him Bragg was unwise even, as it transpired when he in person had to bear the odium of his captain's error Thomas now was backing the "officers appointed over him," and fighting superbly for his coun- try's flag. Dazed for a moment by this most unlooked-for play, disappointed in his plan of battle, Bragg let slip a splendid opportunity. Had he launched in at once with his massed column of attack, he would have found but little to op- pose him, could have cut off Van Cleve and Sheridan, Wood and Negley at the south, swept Palmer off the field in his immediate front, and rolled up anything that was left about Rosecrans at the Widow Glenn's. Instead he started Cheatham off to the aid of Walker, sought to en- velop and throttle Thomas, and lost precious hours of the day in a fearful, yet really fruitless, fight. One brigade after another, on both sides, reeled out of battle, its ammunition spent, its strength exhausted, its numbers sore reduced. Division after division, as it reached the circle of fire, was sent in wherever the line seemed weak- est, to the end that corps organizations were ignored; the men of Thomas, Crittenden, and McCook fought in- termingled and facing every which way. Not until after- noon did Bragg essay a westward charge across the Ross- ville-Lafayette Road. Then the conflict waged was fear- ful in its intensity, and for a time it looked as though it The Rock of Chickamauga. 287 ought to be Stone River over again a turn and roll of the human tide till it broke at the feet of Thomas. But the declining sun saw the banners of Negley and Bran- nan, the far right and left divisions of the early morning, waving in side by side here at the Union center, and finally fluttering in triumph over the smoking, death- strewn field. Fierce and furious as had been the pound- ing of the lifelong day, marked as had been Bragg's superiority in numbers, Rosecrans had held his own. The roads, the gaps to the rear, the field itself were still in his hands. It was no man's battle yet. The night of respite had come at last, and though each side had lost severely in officers and men, and whole batteries had been taken and retaken, the score stood nothing to nothing as the sun went down. Then came the call to conference at the Widow Glenn's, the hour of consultation between the general command- ing and his corps leaders, a somber group of battle- stained men, whose eyes were haggard from loss of sleep, whose bearded faces were lined with care and grim deter- mination. And while these, the leaders, gathered about their chief, staff-officers, aides, and orderlies threw them- selves upon the ground without, huddled in low-toned chat, or dropped in exhaustion off to dreamless sleep. To them who wore the colors of the Union no earthly help could come ; of reenforcements there was no hope what- ever; of reserves they had nothing but Granger's hand- ful at the northward gap. The South, staggering from the blows received ten weeks before at Gettysburg and at 288 The Rock of Chickamauga. Vicksburg, had wisdom in its war office, a pull-together spirit among its leaders, shorter lines of communication, and so sent by thousands its fighting men and its ablest generals to the aid of Bragg. The North, delirious with joy over the great victories of July, had stubborn Halleck for its military head, and, with Grant urging instant move against Mobile a something sure to break up Bragg and bolster Rosecrans with tens of thousands of its willing men lying idle in their camps, not so much as one battal- ion was sent in time to aid the fast depleting ranks of the Army of the Cumberland, far in the heart of the enemy's country, with thronging foes "on every side. "Old Brains" at Washington had left "Old Rosy" in Georgia to fight unaided and alone. No wonder men spoke in low and guarded tone, when now they spoke at all. The few prisoners, gathered after nightfall, told their tale with almost impudent rejoicing. "Just you wait till morning and see what'll happen! Longstreet's with us now and a whole lot more coming. We'll be on you, two to one, at sunup." Indeed had they reason to boast themselves. On the hush of the starlit night, from the open win- dows of the old farmhouse, the home of the Widow Glenn, there rose the sound of a rich, melodious voice, and all waking men within range lent ear to listen. It was McCook, singing at the close of the council, and at his chief's request, the "Hymn of the Hebrew Maiden." The deeply religious nature of Rosecrans, stirred to its depth by the swift-coming perils of the week gone by, and the fearful strain and responsibility of the long day The Rock of Chickamauga. 289 of battle, had sought solace in the noble lines of the minstrel : "When Israel of the Lord beloved, Out from the land of bondage came, Her father's God before her moved An awful guide in smoke and flame." Wearied as they were, his comrades listened intent un- til the last note of the deep barytone died away. Then, in silence and solemnity, the conference broke up; the generals clasped hands, parted, mounted, and rode thoughtfully away. Much remained to be done. A read- justment of the lines had already been effected, and the first orders of Thomas after closing his divisions were to fortify. Spades they had none; but, gathering rails, stones, stumps anything that would stop a bullet, the wearied men went searching through the woods for fallen timber ; the axes rang the livelong night, and everywhere that the brigades of Thomas lay crouched for the coming day, the battle-front was bordered by long hurdles of log and sapling; and the listening pickets in gray, sprinkled everywhere at the foot of the crowded slopes, sent back word to the supports to "watch out" well in the morning, the Yanks had fortified their entire front. And Bragg, too, had been busy. His whole plan had been disrupted, his entire organization had now to be remodeled. Giving Longstreet command over his left, the southern wing, he entrusted the right, the northern, to the senior of his lieutenant-generals, Polk, two years agone right reverend bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church, a West Pointer of distinction turned prelate of 290 The Rock of Chickamauga. eminence, and between Bragg and his ecclesiastical sec- ond in command there had been little sympathy and less accord. Bragg, austere, grim, forbidding in voice and manner, embittered by the failure of his Kentucky expe- dition, the empty honors of Stone's River, the taunts of the Southern press and people, had alienated even those who believed in his soldiership. Two of his best generals, Buckner and Breckinridge, were Kentuckians, and he had insulted Kentucky. Superb fighters and leaders of men were many of his subordinates, notably Walker, Pat Cleburne, Forrest, and Cheatham. Famous commanders were they who had come to his aid, Longstreet, Hood, Preston, and Stewart, yet he had not the gift of drawing his juniors to him, whereas Rosecrans was believed in and beloved, and Thomas well-nigh worshiped. Bragg had lost Hardee, whom the President had detached to Mississippi. He had in his stead General D. H. Hill, who disliked him from the start, but he had under him and on the field some seventy thousand trained fighters to oppose to the possible sixty thousand of the Army of the Cumberland. He had victory within his grasp if he could only break the bulldog hold of that massive, slow- speaking, slow-moving, indomitable leader of the Union left, his old-time first lieutenant. Deep into the night he planned and pondered and listened to varying reports from the front. There was not too much comfort in the tale that Rosecrans was drawing back his lines, that the right and center were now "refused" and gathered along the foothills back of the Widow Glenn's ; that the Lafay- ette Road, so stubbornly defended all the hot September The Rock of Chickamauga. 291 day, was now abandoned to his pickets from the Brother- ton place down to Viniard's, and thence to the Gordon Mill. All that was very well, but ill omen was it that all reports said Thomas was fortifying. Then Thomas meant to stay. What would Bragg not give this solemn midnight, 'twixt Saturday and Sunday, could he but know just what Thomas himself was thinking and doing? There would have been little more comfort, if any. Late in the night, an aide-de-camp, riding back toward Snodgrass Hill from the lines at Kelly's farm, drifted in among the little camp-fires and the blanketed forms sprawled everywhere through the timber. He had report to make of movement around our left, of tramping col- umns and clinking guns, stealthily circling through the darkness to enwrap our northward flank and reach out for Rossville Gap. He murmured inquiry for General Thomas; a staff-officer uncoiled from his blanket, and, with finger to his lips, whispered question as to the tidings, and was told. "He knew it all an hour ago," was the brief reply. "General Rosecrans has been notified. You may as well go back and tell your general not to bother," and the aide took one long look about him and departed, reassured. He never forgot the picture. Under a little tree, on the bare and turfless ground, wrapped in his cloak, his hat pulled over his broad fore- head, his massive head supported on the gauntleted right hand, there lay in placid slumber the soldier charged with the safety of the threatened left. The flickering fire- light played on the red gold of his beard, over the fine, 292 The Rock of Chickamauga. firm lines of the tranquil face, over the curves of the massive form. Booted, spurred, his sword, in the rusting sheath, clasped loosely in the fingers of the left hand, he lay, ready for instant action, yet seeking strength and vigor in the oblivion of restful slumber. About him, close at hand, lay his immediate followers, the staff, Wil- lard, Furber, Freeman nearest, all sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, confident in their security, since he, their leader, was confident. Never a doubt had Thomas since the night of Zollicoffer's dash at Mill Springs; and so, guarded by the encircling lines of the men who loved him and in whom, next to the God he served, our great leader put his trust, content as wearied child in mother's arms, the lion slept against the battle morn of the coming morrow. CHAPTER XXV. All too soon to many a wearied soldier that morning came, with a chill, gray mist creeping in dense, uprolling volume from the sluggish Chickamauga, and settling like a feathery pall over the adjacent fields. Indistinguish- able in the friendly veil, the gray battle-lines of the South shook from their haggard eyes the mists of sleep, and then, catlike, came crouching onward for their spring. All over the low ground, close to the stream where lurked the fierce battalions of the South, the God of Battles had drawn the fleecy shroud that hid his warrior sons from sight of even the foremost pickets of the Union. All over the wooded foothills, the higher ground, where the blue- clad ranks stood silently to arms, in tiny wisps and col- umns the smoke from many a watch-fire drifted slowly to the tree tops, heralding rather than concealing the forma- tion of the national force, and, in this wise, once again the great antagonists faced each other for a fatal day, while, North and South, in a thousand peaceful villages, far from the seat of war, the Sabbath bells were ringing in the sun of God's holy day, and calling the faithful to rise and worship, and pray for father, husband, son, or brother battling somewhere for the flag of his faith and love. Up with the dawn "Old Rosy" was riding his lines from right to left and left to right again, misliking much that impermeable screen that defied the sharpest vision. 294 The Rock of Chickamauga. Dame Nature was giving aid and comfort to his enemy, and, as ever, taking sides against the Army of the Cum- berland. Expecting every instant to hear the terrific burst of yells with which the soldiers of the South were wont to hurl themselves upon the foe, the Union leader could form no idea of what point of his line the first fierce blow would come. And so with straining eyes and ears and nerves, the blue ranks knelt or lay behind the log barricade and watched and waited, waited in bewilder- ment a long hour, another still, until the sun was climbing hot and high above the Carolina Mountains to the east, until the gray mist began slowly to dissolve, and still they came not. Something surely had miscarried. Something indeed! If Rosecrans watched in preplex- ity, Bragg waited, fuming with impatience and with wrath. Striding up and down at his headquarters, he sent message after message to the right, demanding in- stant action. Well might he rage, for precious hours were flitting and the sheltering fog was melting away. He had given to Longstreet command over all the forces of his left wing. He had given to Polk, his priestly sec- ond, dominion over all the right; and with it, as he ever declared, positive orders to attack, full strength, the con- vex lines of Thomas at dawn ; and Polk had unaccounta- bly misunderstood and unconscionably failed him. What Dame Nature had done to help the South, said Bragg, the church militant had undone. The fierce and sudden assault to be led by Bre.ckinridge at six came never until nine, and those three hours were of priceless value at the left. The Rock of Chickamauga. 295 Confident that every effort would be made to seize and hold the Rossville Road, the real road to his base at Chattanooga, Rosecrans had early decided to strengthen Thomas, and to this end ordered Negley's division to quit its post in front of the niter vats, and march straightway to the extreme left. John Beatty, with his four regiments, managed to get away in time, and, taking position in the open field in front of Savannah Church, alone repre- sented Negley at the point of danger, for the other two brigades ctiil hugged their posts of the night gone by, and to the indignation of Rosecrans, another hour passed and the order had not been obeyed. And then happened one of those luckless things that breed discord among the best of men, and stir the fight- ing blood of soldiers to strife among themselves, when every effort should be centered on the common foe. Beatty's brigade had been posted in reserve well to the rear of these of Sirwell and Stanley. Negley himself was with his advanced line. Just back of "Old Rosy's" headquarters, and half-way up the heights, Crittenden's three divisions lay behind their stacked arms, well know- ing it wouldn't be long before they would be sorely needed somewhere, and presently the mandate came. Crittenden, son of the famous John J., of Kentucky, rode up to Wood of the old dragoons of the regular service, now commander of his center division, with direction to advance and relieve Negley, who was ordered over to the left. Both men were by this time experienced soldiers, and each should have known the full meaning of the order. What Wood did was to obey just one-third of it. 296 The Rock of Chickamauga. He advanced to the point where Beatty had been posted in reserve and there halted his men two brigades reliev- ing the one behind, instead of the two in front, and there he waited. So, too, did Negley wait on the foremost line. He could not let go until replaced, and on him burst the initial rumble of "Old Rosy's" rebuke "You should have started over an hour ago/' and when told that no relief had been seen or heard of, still more wrathfully the com- mander sought a deserving victim and found it, as he thought, in Wood. On Wood there fell the sharpest censure of a morning full of stinging words, and, with Negley nettled and Wood incensed, and the chief bristling with nerve tension and exasperation, there was portent of a storm within the lines that might sap the strength the army needed to withstand the fury of the storm so soon to burst without. And surely enough the hapless mischance of the early morning bore weightily in bringing on the fell disaster of the burning noon. Right valiantly did John Beatty sustain the honor of his division, when at last, toward ten, the far-overlapping lines of Breckinridge swept round the left of Thomas and came surging down the rear. Right valiantly, three separate times, did Breckinridge, backed by Forrest and Walker, charge those fire-spitting woodworks of the Union left, only to be beaten back with bitter loss, for the lines of Thomas simply drew closer together and clung with grim tenacity to their ground. Every blow seemed to weld their mettled ranks more rigidly together, and when the hot sun of the nearing The Rock of Chickamauga. 297 noontide climbed to within an hour of the zenith, and the assailants drew back, gasping for breath, Rosecrans lifted up his heart to the God of Battles and thanked him for the sturdy soldier who indomitably held the key to Ross- ville, and the lines of the beleaguered left. Bent like the blade of a sickle, with its convex to the foe, the comrade divisions of Baird, Johnson, Palmer, and Reynolds curved from point to hilt, and against that arch of steel the storm of battle had raged and broken in vain. But now came the deluge. Sirwell's brigade, of Negley, was still in march for the left of the line, its rearmost regiment trailing along at the base of Snodgrass Hill, some half a mile west of Rey- nolds' battle-line. Van Cleve's whole division the bri- gades of Barnes, Dick, and Sam Beatty still nearer the battle-line, was also marching northward, for Thomas had marked the superiority of the Southern numbers in his front, noted the force, ever reaching round his left to seize the Rossville Road, and had called for further aid. Just to the right of Reynolds, but a few rods back of the general line, John Brannan had ranged the brigades of Croxton and Connell the Poe farm enclosure in front of Croxton (he who opened the ball of Saturday morn- ing), the Brotherton farmhouse and fields to the right front of Connell. Just in rear of Brotherton, a trifle in advance of Brannan's line, were the two brigades of Harker and Buell of the still aggrieved and smarting Wood. They were all he had, for Wagner, his third, had been held as guard of Chattanooga. To the right of Wood, still along the southerly extended line, was Car- 298 The Rock of Chickamauga. lin's brigade of Davis's division, with Martin's posted four hundred yards to the rear in support. Off to the right rear, marching up from Crawfish Springs, came Sheri- dan's strong division, its head of column already past the Widow Glenn's; and back of the Dyer orchard, on high ground overlooking the dusty groves and fields, Rosecrans had grouped his anxious staff, Garfield tower- ing in their midst, the gifted successor of the lamented Garesche. Afar off in front of Thomas the crash of volleys and boom of cannon still rumbled on the pulsing air, but not a foot had Thomas flinched. The left was planted solid. How, now, as to the right? It looked strong enough at the northward end, but it needed Sheridan at the other flank. It had borne no strain, save that of suspense, for eighteen hours. It lay with many an open field in its front, so far as the Lafay- ette highway. Beyond that, however, there was mystery, and there might be mischief, for the woods were thick, and the gray skirmish-line along their westward edge resented all effort to inquire within. Not yet had Long- street opened, and they who knew him well knew that when he struck it was with the blow of a thunderbolt. And well they reasoned, for by eleven o'clock he had arrayed, under cover of his leafy screen, three strong divisions in column of attack, with Bushrod Johnson square in front of Wood and barely half a mile away, with Stewart and Hindman on the wings, with batteries bristling everywhere in the brigade intervals. Eighteen thousand men he meant to launch against the Union cen- ter, and with grim-visaged Bragg looking eagerly on, and The Rock of Chickamauga. 299 the divisions of Cleburne and Preston posted in support of his flanks, all dispositions were just about completed as that fateful hour, eleven, approached. Anxiously, keenly watching the indications in his immediate front, soldierly Brannan had seen enough to convince him that an attack in tremendous force was coming, and was riding back to where he had secreted his line in the fringing wood, when met and almost confounded by an order to quit that position and move to the extreme left, reporting to Gen- eral Thomas on the way. "Take this glass and see for yourself," said he to the staff-officer, and, peering through, the aide-de-camp could make out dim lines in gray crouching slowly forward through the opposite tim- ber-belt, and, clapping spurs to his steed, went tearing away to Rosecrans with Brannan's message : "The at- tack is coming here and now. Shall I obey the order to go?" But before ever that galloping aide could reach his chief, one more stroke of that devil's own luck, that had ever beset the Army of the Cumberland, now fell full on its sore-troubled commander. A veteran officer, foreign- scnooled, riding southward from Thomas to note the lines, came trotting out ten minutes earlier on what he took in his surprise to be a gap between the right of Reynolds's division and the left of Wood's. Never think- ing to study the belt of timber at his right hand as he rode, he worried on to Wood with inquiry as to what had become of Brannan, and Wood, still smarting from the reprimand of the earlier morning, was in no mood for conversation. It resulted in Von Schrader's spurring off 300 The Rock of Chickamauga. himself in search of Rosecrans, and finding him, reported Brannan out of line. "Ha ! Prompt work for Brannan ! There's a man who jumps when he gets the order to go !" The order had gone barely thirty minutes, yet here was report that Brannan was already off before reply could reach headquarters. Well done, Brannan! But that leaves a gap, and a big one, in the line. That must not be. No. Rosecrans turns at once to the nearest staff-officer: "Order Wood to close in to his left at once on Reynolds," and the duty of his transmission fell to Major Bond, and Bond wrote these exact words : "The general commanding directs you to close up on Reynolds as fast as possible and support him." It was an orderly, not an officer, who galloped away with it, and in the course of twenty minutes came trotting back. "What said the general?" asked some one, anx- ious to know. "He said he was glad the order came in writing. It would be a good thing to have for future reference," was the answer, and men looked at each other with troubled eyes. . What had got into Wood ? They had not long to wait. Brannan, deeming it sure that attack in force was coming, knew that disaster would result from his obeying an order to quit the line, and so ventured to send word to his chief and wait. Wood, knowing that Brannan had not gone that there was no gap betwixt him and Reynolds, and possibly, too ? expect- ant of attack, read his order literally ; remembered wrath- fnlly the sting of "Old Rosy's" rebuke for his failure The Rock of Chickamauga. 301 literally to obey an earlier order, and, carefully filing away the hurriedly penciled lines to be his defense should disaster follow, invited that disaster, faced his division to the rear and, marching away behind the ranks of Bran- nan, left that fatal half-mile gap in the line. The North knew the rest within twenty hours. It hap- pened just as Longstreet gave the word "advance," and ten minutes later, in wild, tumultuous, triumphant rush, by brigades the charging column, with the light batteries lashing alongside, a whole army-corps, practically, hurled itself upon that miserable break in the battle-front; went tearing through in a yelling torrent of gray ; doubling the right of Brannan back on the base of Snodgrass Hill; tumbling over the unlimbered guns in the Dyer field; overwhelming the little brigades of Laiboldt and Lytle, vainly striving to stem the flood; crushing the scattered battalions of Davis and Sheridan; striking Wood him- self in flank and sending everything about headquarters Rosecrans, Crittenden, and McCook, whirling away in the rush and confusion, driving them headlong for the shel- tering heights in rear ; and, believing everything lost and no stand possible short of the works of Chattanooga, thither almost broken-hearted and in mental agony that bordered on collapse thither spurred Rosecrans, and with him went the chiefs of his center and left. There was left to him but one hope, that of rallying his men with their backs to the swirling Tennessee, facing the Southland again at the Gateway of the Gods. Yes, he whose dauntless courage and thrilling example had turned the rout of the right wing at Stone River 302 The Rock of Chickamauga. into what was termed a personal victory, now at Chicka- mauga sped miles to the rear, convinced that his whole army was in mad retreat that there was only one place to rally and reform it. So believing, his acts could be explained and might even be justified, but McCook and Crittenden went, too, and left their spent and shattered corps behind them. That proved something the North could never stomach. And this was noonday of the September Sabbath. The whole right wing was gone. The divisions of Sheridan, Davis, Wood, Van Cleve, and Negley, with brigades and batteries intermingled and, in many cases, batteries aban- doned and gone, were drifting away, disheartened, to- ward the crest of Mission Ridge. The triumphant host of Longstreet had swarmed all over the abandoned field, jubilantly rounding up prisoners by thousands, sacking the wagon-trains, and securing the cannon. By dozens and hundreds mounted officers and men were spurring through the crooked bridle-paths across the range and then, screened from sight of the battle-field, galloping on into Chattanooga, with added tale of utter rout and death and woe. All because the right had gone to smash, they reasoned that no human power could save the left. Yes, two corps, and corps commanders, had been swept bodily out of battle. Gallant Lytle and Heg, heading their brigades in vain effort, died at their posts on the line, scores of their brave men with them. Fragments of five divisions were in retreat to the west. The cavalry at the far right was cut off and compelled to ride for shelter over to the Cove. But, one corps commander, one The Rock of Chickamauga. 303 devoted corps, and certain rallying fragments of other commands, still grimly and magnificently held their ground at the left. The crescent line of the pallid dawn had been bent to the sickle in the early morning, the arch of steel had been hammered to the horseshoe of the afternoon, but that horseshoe became emblem of better luck at last for the sorely battered army. In the white heat of desperate battle it had been forged upon an anvil of solid rock, steadfast, immovable, and indomitable as the soldier soul of George H. Thomas. And now came the final turn in the tide. Such men as Wood, Davis, and Sheridan, and such men as made up their fighting divisions, were not like to abandon the field so long as a rallying-point remained, and somewhere within the third hour that followed the crush of the right wing they learned that the left still stood. By that time Sheridan and Davis were through McFarland Gap. Davis turned about the way he came and marched his weary men to join Thomas's right. Sheridan swung out for Rossville Gap and, turning eastward, came sturdily back to the valley toward Thomas's left. Wood, earlier than either, learning the truth, headed cross lots for Snodgrass Hill and met the master of the situation on the foremost ridge. From that time on no man could say jWood failed one whit in either judgment or duty. In the fearful fighting of the late afternoon he and his little division fought second to none, and every man was needed. Another brainy, brilliant deed had borne fruit in the final result. Another fighting soldier had sped with his 304 The Rock of Chickamauga. brigade to cast his lot with Thomas. Afar off to the north, over three miles distant, Gordon Granger had been posted with orders to defend the approaches to Rossville Gap. The thunder of battle told him Thomas was sore beset. His scouts assured him the enemy was gradually encircling the left wing. His soldier sense convinced him that the Gap could take care of itself a while and that he was needed elsewhere. With gallant Steedman at his back, the two fresh brigades, by hard marching, reached the Snodgrass Hill soon after three o'clock and in the nick of time. Thomas gripped his hand in wordless gratitude and pointed out where to plant his lines, then sent Steedman, flag in hand, in a magnificent charge on Longstreet's advanced division, checking and over- whelming the move to turn the right flank; then settled down in dogged determination to beat back every assault and hold that horseshoe till the sun went down. At half-past three, Garfield, reaching him by way of Ross- ville, and rinding him safe, strong, and self-reliant, poured out his soul in a triumphant despatch to his chief, still sitting heart-sick back there at Chattanooga, to the end that as the sun went down behind the huge barrier of Lookout, a courier came spurring in, all spume and sweat, waving aloft the envelope with which he had been charged to ride like the wind to Chattanooga, and Rose- crans, staggering to his feet, tore open the missive, ex- pectant of more disaster; read almost incredulous; then again the paper was swung aloft, and with a sob that shook his frame, the brave, yet broken, chief cried aloud in his relief and joy: "God be thanked, the day is not The Rock of Chickamauga. 305 yet lost!" God be thanked, indeed! God be praised for the bulwark He had builded against the well-nigh resist- less torrent of disunion, for the indomitable spirit that through days of stress and shock had endured steadfast to the end, for the massive, stubborn strength that dwelt unconquerable in the loyal soul of George H. Thomas Thomas, The Rock of Chickamauga ! CHAPTER XXVI. There came a month in which they could talk of little else, when they could talk at all, these battle-worn vet- erans of the Army of the Cumberland. There came long weeks of siege and semistarvation. They were far in the Southland, be it remembered, with but a single line of railway for their supplies, and that one, at its lower end, swept by the guns of the enemy. They lay within the entrenchments in front of Chattanooga, standing off the snarling war-dogs along the line across the valley, and gazing gloomily at the blood-red battle-flags that dotted the crests of old Lookout to their right, and all along Mission Ridge beyond their left. They had had fearful pounding in those two days of battle, and, in many a paper all over the North, their leaders were getting it yet. All save one, the loyal soldier Secretary Stanton still held tainted with disloyalty, the dauntless and dutiful Virginian the North was beginning almost to adore. There came to them but little comfort and few letters. Mail communications were interrupted; the wires across the mountains were frequently down. The rumor went about that, dispirited, "Old Rosy" had determined to abandon Chattanooga rather than see his army starve, and to fall back, fighting, to Nashville. That rumor reached the Northland, bringing Stanton himself, post- haste, from Washington to Louisville; and Grant, the unquestioned conqueror of the Mississippi Valley, from The Rock of Chickamauga. 307 the field of his triumph to conference with the war minis- ter. The story of that meeting Grant himself has told. The results were telegraphed to the saddened Army of the Cumberland saddened, yet turning in thankfulness of spirit to the hope and head so long denied them. "Old Rosy" stood relieved of his command ; Thomas stood pro- moted in his stead, and the first message to silent Grant and the still half-doubting secretary read: "We'll hold the town until we starve." Mournfully they had bidden adieu to McCook and Crittenden. Two years had they drilled, marched, or battled with or under them, and the ties of such comrade- ship are strong. There were tears in many an eye when these old-time leaders had to turn over their commands and go their ways. Both had served loyally and faith- fully according to their lights; both were brave, but in the three great battles of the Army of the Cumberland, Perryville, Stone's River, and Chickamauga, luck or something had been dead against them. At the two last named their corps had been swept away, and at the last of all they were swept farther than their corps. The story was told through the dreary camps that "Old Rosy" had ordered them back to their commands late that rueful Sunday afternoon, but their commands were widely scattered, and it took another day to find and reorganize them. Very different were the stories told of Thomas and his superb stand against tremendous odds. They were now more numerous than the camp-fires, and to the full as glowing. The new commander fairly shrank from mov- 308 The Rock of Chickamauga. ing among his men, for, wherever he was seen, they sprang to cheer him, whereat he would blush like a schoolgirl and show distress he who looked like a lion at bay all that thunderous Sunday afternoon he who turned in stern rebuke to the division general, who, in wrath and exasperation, his own corps commander and his general-in-chief having quit the field, rode up with the words: "General Thomas, I report to you as the only man fit to lead this army.'* Who that heard it could ever forget the reply : "General , that's mutiny !" And then, on crutches, seeing everything, saying noth- ing, came Grant, the new commander of the newly consti- tuted Division of the Mississippi, with jurisdiction over pretty much everything west of the Appalachians, with a businesslike staff, and a kind word to Rosecrans, who stayed long enough to give him the benefit of suggestions that Grant himself, who had approved his relief, declared were excellent so good he marveled that Rosecrans him- self had never carried them out. And then Grant looked long at the new head of the Army, and Department, of the Cumberland, whom he had but slightly known before, and whom he did not half- know even now. Nor was Thomas communicative. Never had his staff seen him so preoccupied, so intent. A new chief of staff had come for duty with the army, vice Garfield, who had broader functions looming in the immediate future, and this new adjutant was a man after Thomas's own heart, and something like him in mold and manner The Rock of Chickamauga. 309 "Old Faithful," the soldiers dubbed him before many days. Between these two there grew a bond that others watched with, soldierly envy it meant so much to be in close touch with Thomas. And with this coming of Whipple, the successor of Garesche and Garfield, fresh from months of duty where one could hear what was being said at court, Thomas at last began to learn something definite as to the slights and suspicions that, from the earliest days of the Ken- tucky campaign, had attached to him. And now strands of silver began to show amid the yellow gold of his close- cropped beard, and deeper lines to form about the mobile lips. Men who long had served with him, and loved him, noted painfully the patient sadness in his keen blue eyes. Fulmer exploded orally about it. Freeman, who had been with his great leader day and night, and had grown to him like a spaniel to his master, mourned and won- dered. One day there came a ray of illuminating light. Ful- mer's governor had made him a captain for his share in the campaign. Ruddy Rolfe, who had led the "Children of Israel" like a modern Moses, and, to their infinite sor- row, had been sent North to recuperate from severe wounds, went preceded by urgent recommendations for his promotion to a generalship; and when letters began to pour in from home, and proud, yet trembling, mothers could reach their boys with words of love and praise, there came glowing missives from Mrs. Freeman arid from Elsie. Colonel Rolfe had spoken so highly of Ned (Shrewd move, that, Ruddy!), Colonel Rolfe declared 310 The Rock of Chickamauga. Ned deserved a majority and must have at least a cap- taincy at once. So Senator This had written to Govern- or Dick, and if General Thomas would but add a line or two (which lines had gone already) there remained no manner of doubt that Ned, too, would get his double bars. So, happily he waited, but they came not. One day, instead, there reached him a long letter from Colonel Rolfe himself, and Rolfe was furious. "Somebody has been maligning you/' said he, "for they write me from Springfield the governor has been stuffed full of stories about your aiding spies to escape, being a bearer of secret letters to avowed rebel sympathizers, and to clinch it all is the story of your engagement to marry a Louisiana girl." And that was not the only reminder. With General Grant had come an officer who was with him during his brief and unlucky visit to New Orleans. By that officer had come a little packet of letters from that Louisiana girl; and Freeman, in bitterness of spirit, went to his grave-faced general one November day, and showed him Rolfe's stinging pages and begged for ten days' leave to go to Springfield and tell the governor and his advisers the actual facts. "These accusations are weighing me down, general," said he. "It is a bitter thing to be doing one's whole duty here and being so maligned at home." Then Thomas, who had bent his head in thought, looked up from Rolfe's letter, the silver-blue eyes clouded with a pain that seemed now almost permanent, and then at last he spoke and Freeman knew : "None can feel deeper sympathy for you, my boy. You The Rock of Chickamauga. 311 do not begin to know how hard I've been trying to teach myself not to feel at all." So Thomas knew of his detractors and maligners. Even such loyalty as his, then, could be aspersed. But there was no going away on leave for Ned Free- man or for anybody. Grant still was there with "some- thing up his sleeve," said camp-fire prophets, and Sher- man was coming with the Army of the Tennessee in his train, and big events were foreshadowed. The war department had at last confirmed the opinion of the Army of the Cumberland, and had given that army to the commander to whom it so long had pinned its faith, but it would not give its commander independent command. It must have Grant to supervise and Sherman to sup- port; so in silence and subordination, as ever before, Thomas busied himself about his duties. There was an atmosphere of chill about the new head- quarters of the big new military division. Grant had shed his crutches, but could not so easily drop his con- victions. It was late in October when he reached Chick- amauga. For nearly a month the Army of the Cumber- land had been on starvation allowance. Sixty miles of mountain road had their wagons to haul from the rail- way. Beef "dried on the hoof" was the only kind to reach them. Officers and men were ragged, pale, worn to skin and bone. Contrasting their appearance with that of the well-fed divisions he had left along the Mississippi, Grant drew an inference he was soon to regret. He thought the army more than half-cowed as well as half- starved, and from his headquarters there sifted, some- 312 The Rock of Chickamauga. how, the story that he believed the army couldn't fight. It sounds incredible of Grant, as we know him now, but it was credited then, and it stirred the Army of the Cumberland to the marrow. From commander down to camp-follower, it kept much to itself and busy in the work of building up again. The "Cracker line" was now providing food and clothing. A fortnight on full rations was all they needed, and when it came to fighting again, perhaps their general-in-chief would have occasion to mend his views. It wouldn't be their fault, said camp-fire chat, if he didn't. But meanwhile Ned Freeman was chafing at his bonds fretful, irritable, and unhappy. He knew well that enemies had been at work with his name, and he believed he knew which enemies had been most active. He knew well that there was good ground for the story of his engagement to Kate Claiborne, although there was noth- ing to warrant that of disloyalty to his country. What troubled him most, in the silent watches of the night when he lay wakeful by the shore of the murmuring river, was the consciousness of disloyalty to her to the Louis- iana girl whom he had last seen, orphaned, desolate, yet brave and beautiful even in her desolation, when with the mortal remains of her father she was borne away to the home of her girlhood. Well he realized that she went with his assurance that he loved her. There had been hours when he believed it himself. From Frances Morgan not one word or line had come to him. From all he heard she had been a social success In Louisville, a belle wherever she moved, and, having The Rock of Chickamauga. 313 quarreled with him being bound to him by no promise of any kind what on earth was there to bind him to her ? Whether she cared for Jack Barbour or not, or was coquetting with captains by the dozen in blue or gray as they chanced to come, Freeman had not a vestige of rea- son to think she had ever begun to care for him. Why should he, therefore, continue in humble suppliance a mere toy of her vanity? On the other hand, why should he not do his best to stifle the love he felt for her, strong though it was ? Why should he not learn to love this other, this gentle and de- voted girl who had shown such wealth of tenderness, who had nursed him through his sufferings, who had shielded him from his foes, who had been such a model of filial love and piety, and who, his reason told him, looked upon him, twice perhaps the savior of her father's life, with a tenderness that might readily ripen into love? Indeed, had she not, in her desolation the day of her father's death, and probably, too, as a result of his marked devo- tion in word and manner during that father's last days leaned upon him in the abandon of her grief, supported by his encircling arm, and sobbed her heart out on his breast. What words had he not whispered? What thoughts, indeed, had he not inspired? Formal engage- ment there was none, yet Katherine Claiborne had right to believe in his love and to expect of him a lover's plea for hers in return. There had been no moment alone with her after the day of Captain Claiborne's death, but there had been one uplifting of her deep, beautiful eyes to his, as they clasped hands in parting, and a took that 314 The Rock of Chickamauga. haunted him to this moment. There had been no love- letters from him to her, because letters of any kind might be read by other eyes than hers at least, he so persuaded himself ; but he had written twice, and now here were her answers three by the hand of that dapper little major on the general's staff, and they were penned in the lan- guage he and she had grown to use in their sorrowful, yet tender meetings at the last "the first tongue her mother's she had ever heard." And now while Frances Morgan was probably flirting with "casuals" in Kentucky, Kate Claiborne was once again wandering under the live- oaks near what was left of her mother's old home and people, thanking him again and again for all his kindness, and blessing him for all he had done and suffered for her father, and praying for the cessation of the cruel war, and for his long life and happiness. But happiness and he were things far apart. "Freeman," said his general, one morning in mid- November, "I wish you would ride in and give this in person to General Grant," and "this" proved to be an oblong packet in oiled silk found on the person of a Con- federate officer, captured at dawn by the pickets up the Tennessee. Freeman rode as directed; dismounted, and spent a moment or two waiting reply. The general would see him presently, said an aide, and presently he was ushered through a broad hallway, where stood and sat officers, orderlies, and civilians, most of them strangers. The aide threw open a door, said briefly, "Staff-officer from Gen- eral Thomas, sir," and vanished. Only two persons did The Rock of Chickamauga. 315 Freeman see, as with cap in one hand and packet in the other, he entered the little room. The sunshine, pouring through the uncurtained windows at the east, dazzled his eyes an instant. The bearded officer, in a simple sack coat, seated in rather stoop-shouldered attitude at a table covered with maps and papers, held forth his left hand for the packet, which a single glance had told him was the purpose of Freeman's coming, while with the right he jotted pencil notes of what his earlier visitor was say- ing. As this latter stopped abruptly on Freeman's en- trance, the general prompted, in the first words Freeman had ever heard him speak, "Sherman says ?" There was an instant of silence. Then, with a certain significance in its very drawl or deliberation, and Free- man started at sound of the voice and sight of the speaker, the answer came : "Possibly, it might be well to wait a moment. This package may be of immediate im- portance," and with his extended fingers, tip-touching and pointing* downward, with a roll of his great eyes at the packet in Freeman's hand, but with no sign of recog- nition in his sallow, smooth-shaven face, Colonel Cutler again stood ominously before him. CHAPTER XXVII. Chickamauga being a thing of the past, and the isolated Army of the Cumberland reduced some fourteen thou- sand men, killed, wounded, and missing, Washington woke up, as has been said, and, while Richmond was detaching Longstreet, sending him up the Tennessee to try out Burnside at Knoxville, Hooker arrived, by round- about route, with the remnants of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and the head of Sherman's long column was signaled far down- stream, and now it behooved Bragg to look out for him- self. He had a division on Lookout Mountain ; his lines encircled the Union works across the Chattanooga Val- ley; his own headquarters and strongest posts were on Mission Ridge, overlooking the town and garrison from the east. But he could not see the camp of Hooker's men beyond the Raccoon Heights; he could not locate Sher- man after his divisions had crossed the Tennessee. Grant hid them behind the ridges to the north of Chattanooga ; dragged the heavy pontoons by long and winding way, and launched them in a sheltered stream miles above the town; floated them down under cover of night; flung them across in face of the pickets; and, on the 23d of November, his plans were complete. Hooker, from Wauhatchie Valley, was to assault Lookout and drive its little guarding division from its lofty perch. Thomas, with the Army of the Cumberland, was to make The Rock of Chickamauga. 317 a demonstration, so to speak; but Sherman, with the Army of the Tennessee, was to be the chief actor of the martial drama. With his warriors of the West flushed with their triumphs about Vicksburg, hard, vigorous, and sinewy with long weeks of marching, Sherman was to seize the north end of Missouri Ridge, and then, in furious attack in full force, sweep southward down that beautiful line of heights, and while the Army of the Cum- berland was supposed to stand gazing enviously, ad- miringly, upward taking their needed lesson in the art of war from these their more fortunate brethren Sherman was to send Bragg's gray legions whirling before him from one point to another until, from Tunnel Hill to Rossville, the historic ridge should be swept clean of the insolent foe. Bragg, Breckinridge, and Hardee would 'be driven, dismayed, into the flats of the Chickamauga, and Thomas and his devoted army-corps should be shown how things can be done by expert hands, with the right sort of metal to back them. And then we all know how beautifully it worked how well Hooker and his Potomac divisions played their part with simply stupendous scenic effect how the blue lines clambered the heights, were lost amid the clouds, and emerged, fire flashing above them. The stiff climb was the hardest part of it, for Hooker had men enough to swallow alive the few hundred Confederates on the crest, who had to squeeze out to avoid being surrounded. We all know how, with Hooker in force on Lookout, and en- filading their lines across Chattanooga Creek, and with the Army of the Cumberland drawn up in solid ranks in 318 The Rock of Chickamauga. their front, there was nothing for the left of Bragg's line to do but swing back for Mission Ridge. There they were on the glorious morning of the 25th, with Hooker's advance striding out for Rossville, and the Army of the Cumberland, in four fine divisions our old friends Johnson, Sheridan, Wood, and Baird from right to left respectively drawn up in the valley in front of that long curtain of heights, silent, subordinate, like their great leader ; facing the stage now and waiting, like well- behaved audience, to see the grand act of the drama ; to meekly take their object-lesson and then the back seats which the powers had decreed should be their place in history. They paraded in such beautiful order, said Bragg and his generals afterward, their ranks so solidly closed, so accurately aligned, that the soldier eyes of these appreciative onlookers were rejoiced, and Bragg was moved to say of his old-time first lieutenant whom he ever held in affectionate regard and solid respect, even when he had to fight him, "Old Tom was always preci- sion itself." Yes, there on Orchard Knob, that but yesterday had been the key-point of the Confederate works in the valley there with the grand panorama in full view before them, were grouped the senior generals and their staffs Grant, the commander of all ; Thomas, the head of the Army of the Cumberland; and Gordon Granger, now commander of the Fourth Corps. The old Twentieth and Twenty-first, McCook's and Crittenden's, had been broken up and merged. The old and indomitable Four- The Rock of Chickamauga. 319 teenth, Thomas's own, was now headed by our old friend, the war Democrat, Palmer, of Illinois. But things had not turned out exactly as planned. To begin with, Sherman found himself with only three of his seasoned divisions when he started in to surprise the Confederate weasels at the north end of the ridge. Os- terhaus had been cut off by the breaking of the bridge below Chattanooga, and so was serving with Hooker at Lookout. So Sherman called for something to replace him, and it was Davis, Army of the Cumberland, who was sent in his stead. It was Davis's division that covered the crossing for the Army of the Tennessee. So much for the left. Then away to the right, too, the Army of the Cumber- land had unexpectedly broken into the game. In spite of the intimated opinion that it could not be got to come out of its entrenchments to fight, the army was showing unlooked-for propensity to "mix in." Hooker had got up close to the palisade cliffs of old Lookout on the late afternoon of the 24th, but the Confederate flag still waved at the crest as the sun went down. Now at early morning of the 25th there rose a shout of delight in the eastward valley, for, as the mist cleared away and the signal-glasses were brought to bear on the magnificent heights, little dots of skirmishers in blue could be made out scrambling up and up, and presently there burst upon the view, waving gloriously, trium- phantly, a regimental color, the silken stars and stripes, and from Tunnel Hill, far around along the winding Tennessee, along twenty miles of meandering, the rocks 320 The Rock of Chickamauga. and cliffs resounded with exultant cheers that rang for hours, cheers that burst out afresh with almost mad re- joicing when the word went laughing along the line that, after all, the Eighth Kentucky were first at the top that, after all, the summit was crowned by the Second Brigade, First Division, of the Army of the Cumberland. And that wasn't all. By no manner of means was it all ! Safely screened by the boulders and cedars from sight of the commander-in-chief, while their own general sat calm and controlled in saddle, a graceless few of the youngsters of his staff, Freeman and Fulmer among them, were capering madly and dancing with glee, for another call had come to the Cumberland. Grant, sitting grimly at the eastward edge of the knoll, waiting vainly for the colors of Sherman to show on the ridge, and list- ening to the crash of guns at the far eastward flank, decided that Bragg must be heavily reen forcing fighting Pat Cleburne, who alone had checked Sherman the even- ing before. Something surely must be wrong when the Army of the Tennessee couldn't "sweep," and sweep it surely had not. For all of its shooting, not a rod had it gained, and the play was stalled in consequence. "Send another division," came the order to Thomas, and from Thomas went Freeman full gallop to Baird, and that courtly division commander, with his invariable "Very well, sir," sent a thrill through his brigades with the order to face to the left. They were off to help Sherman and were gone all of five hours, while still the occupants of Orchard Knob sat watching and waiting. Then they were seen marching very handsomely back to their post The Roek of Chickamauga. 321 on the left of the paraded lines. "What's the matter?" asked the general-in-chief. "General Sherman's compli- ments and he needs no assistance," was the answer. "Then why the what the how did it happen he ?" All manner of questions the aides-de-camp ask, but the chief sits in silent gloom. It is long after noon ; it is al- most three, and Hooker is down from Lookout and stri- ding across to attack the far southern left at Rossville. Thomas and his four divisions have been waiting since sunup for the promised show; Sherman hasn't so much as swept half a mile, and yet scorns to have aid. Then at last was it that Grant turned to Thomas. It was his men of the Cumberland who had whipped the enemy out of the very earthworks on whose reversed ramparts the generals have been watching proceedings all the livelong day. It is the Army of the Cumberland that, far better than these stanch but strange allies from the Potomac and Mississippi, have cause to know the ins and outs of Mission Ridge. But it has pleased the powers to send others to do the work, and, after some- thing of two days of trial, Sherman, at least, is about where he started, and his men are well-nigh spent. But here, fresh and vigorous, are three fine divisions, with Baird's men trudging fast to rejoin them. Possibly sending this two-mile-long line of Cumberlands full front toward the ridge, looming less than a mile from the center, may induce Bragg to believe them in earnest; so much so that he will call in his war-dogs away off to the right, and so before sundown make way for Sherman and the Tennessee. 322 The Rock of Chickamauga. Up to now it had been planned that, after Sherman had made his sweep, the lines of Thomas were to join him in pursuit; but Sherman has not brushed the foe from the front of the Cumberland. Now, can the Cum- berland brush them from the front of the Tennessee? Yonder, aligned on the ridge, confronting Thomas, are eleven brigades with sixteen batteries. Yonder in the plain, confronting the ridge, are eleven brigades and four light batteries. Numerically they are well matched, save for the South's preponderance in guns, but with the South lies all the advantage of position. To this day Grant's biographers have it that when he turned to Thomas it was to order attack only on the lines at the base of the ridge. To this day it is held he had no higher intention, but never was order to advance received with such fierce, uncontrollable joy. In splendid rank and alignment, the four divisions sprang to their work, and Orchard Knob swarmed with spectators eager to note the result. For a few minutes, almost in dead silence, the long lines in blue-gray overcoats swept stead- ily over the level plain ; then, as they came within range, all along the ridge the guns of the South opened on them in thunder, and shot and shell came screaming down. Then the pace quickened. Then the gray skirmish-lines, well out to the front, began to spit fire, and then to scat- ter for cover. Then "quick" changed to double quick, for up rose the ranks of gray infantry in the works at the foot of the slope, and the parapets blazed with the swift "fire at will." Then the double became the dash, with a pent-up, resonant, deep-throated burst of cheers, and The Rock of Chickamauga. 323 then the bluecoats, here, there, and everywhere, could be seen scrambling over the low breastworks and diving into the depths beyond. In some places they were at the very heels of the skirmishers. But that wasn't all. Away up the heights, by squads and scores and battalions, the defenders were drifting. The guns at the crest could not be depressed so as to sweep the slope. The supports dare not fire for fear of shooting their own. It was a chance not to be lost, and Baird at the left, where the heights were steep, and Johnson at the right, where the check had been slightest, were already clambering and smiting at the heels of the pursued. For a brief moment or two there was effort at the center, on the part of Wood and Sheridan, to literally obey the original order, to halt and control the men, but effort proved vain. Balked and de- frauded too often in the past, the army had taken the bit in its teeth, the Cumberland was charging up hill, and, finding it hopeless to stop them, wise men that they were, the leaders rejoicefully followed their lines. The men had the instinct of battle, and orders or no orders, were bent on fighting it out. Astonished at a demonstration so utterly unlocked for, the general-in-chief turned sharply on Thomas. "By whose orders are those troops going up the hill?" was the angry question. "By their own, most likely," was the quiet reply, for nothing could be going better. "It is all right if it turns out all right," said Grant, but added, with ominous shake of the head: "If not, some one will suffer." And who that "some one" would be one could readily guess. 324 The Rock of Chickamauga. But when, as the westering sun, taking- its last peep over Lookout for the day, threw its almost level beams athwart the long barrier of Mission Ridge, it shone along the entire length on the firmly planted banners of the Union, on cheering and exultant brigades in blue, on hundreds of captured men and whole batteries of captured cannon. Bragg in the darkness drifted away with his beaten army, and once again the men of Major Slow Trot against all comers won the honors of the day. "Well, Colonel Cutler," shouted a young brigade com- mander, with a bandaged head, and an arm in a sling, and a longing for further fight, "what have you got to say of the Army of the Cumberland now?" And reflectively, deliberately, judicially, Colonel Cutler responded : "I always did say the army was all right." "Well, Ned Freeman," said Captain Fulmer, as the junior aide-de-camp stiffly dismounted from a chase after Sheridan's division, "this time, anyhow, you didn't get hit, and the 'Old Man' wants to see you, quick as you're in." Without answer, for he was strangely weak and weary, Freeman entered the circle of officers gathered about a rousing camp-fire at general headquarters, now moved forward from Orchard Knob far up on the eastward slope of the ridge. Grant was there, stoop-shouldered, his hands behind his back, listening in silence to eager words of Sherman. Hooker had ridden over, debonair despite two days of battle and saddle. A score of staff-officers were jotting down the verbal reports from scattered divi- sions. Thomas, the serene center of a little group of his The Rock of Chickamauga. 325 own, whose members were doing not a little quiet hand- shaking, was dictating instructions to Whipple and Wil- lard, and at Freeman's "You wish to see me, sir?" turned slowly, his kind eyes filling with concern as they encountered those of his young aide. "You look worn out, Freeman. There's nothing amiss, I hope. Colonel Cutler here has something he says the general wishes you to explain." The general General Grant wished him junior aide of General Thomas to explain. Was Freeman dream- ing or dizzy, or only faint and hungry ? Things seemed so swimmy about him. No dream, however. Here was Cutler, his sallow face impassive as ever ; his big eyes rolling as ever; a curious parcel, a flat case, that, when opened, revealed two old-fashioned, coverless daguerreo- types, lay in one long, bony hand. In the other was ex- tended a not uncommon traveling flask that needed not the inscription of his name upon the cup to enable Free- man to recognize his private property. He had not seen it since the night of Chickamauga. He could only mistily see it now, and it was doing strange, swinging, circling as Cutler slowly, incisively spoke: "With certain papers these items were taken from a dying Confederate officer this afternoon. He couldn't explain. The general thinks it possible Mr. Freeman may." But Mr. Freeman might not. He stood swaying a sec- ond or two, then went staggering backward into the arms of a staff-officer. He had swooned away. CHAPTER XXVIII. In all the tumult of rejoicing and triumph that fol- lowed upon the brilliant victories of Lookout and Mission Ridge, the dramatic episode at general head- quarters the night of the latter, attracted but little atten- tion; so little that its most immediate sequel was hardly noted except by officers of Thomas's staff, for it was in their midst that it had occurred, and even to them there came right speedily matters of far weightier import to settle. They had quickly raised their stricken comrade, car- ried him a little distance away from the throng, and laid him underneath the tree where he and Fulmer, only three hours earlier, had danced exultantly at sight of Sheridan's division sweeping on toward the Chicka- mauga, in hot pursuit of Bragg. There would be no more exultant dancing for Freeman for many a day. There was something near to a fracas when Cutler, close following the silent, swift-footed bearers, bent over the bowed shoulders of Thomas himself Thomas, who, with anxiety in his eyes, had dropped on one knee by the side of the staff surgeon, whose deft fingers were in rapid play; and Fulmer, his hands covered with blood, was drawing off the high riding-boot from which poured a red torrent. At sound of Cutler's drawl, and sight of his sallow, inscrutable face how utterly out of place it looked in the gleam of the lantern, peering over the The Rock of Chickamauga. 327 shoulder of their honored general one or two men glanced suddenly and resentfully up, and Thomas slowly arose and faced him. "A rather significantly sudden drop, I should say," was Cutler's comment, and there was wrath in the doc- tor's equally significant answer: "Most men, Colonel Cutler, would have dropped much sooner." Then, with caustic emphasis : "He must have been buoyed up with the hope of seeing you." "He will see me just as soon as he can sit up and speak," said Cutler. Then for the first time he realized that he stood in the presence of the commander of the Army of the Cumberland. "Not if I know it, Colonel Cutler," sharply answered the surgeon. "Not unless General Grant orders it, Colonel Cutler," sternly said General Thomas. And in dead silence the intruder turned and walked away. The sight of the sur- geon's swift-flashing scissors, as they clipped the blood- stained breeches at the knee the sight of the aversion in the bearded faces of that stern little circle had brought sudden realization of his blunder. "It's as Wharton said," muttered the doctor, a moment later. "The Stone River wound has reopened and he's bled enough to fell a giant." But men told of still further reactionary matter in- volving Cutler, and occurring that very night. Thomas's blood was up, and his long-suppressed sense of outrage and indignity at the hands of his insidious enemies seemed destined to assert itself at last. Men who note,d 328 The Rock of Chickamauga. saw Cutler return to the presence of the general-in-chief, still patiently listening to vehement harangue from Sher- man, while other generals, awaiting a hearing, stood more or less patiently by. Men noted that presently Thomas came striding in to the firelight, his eyes ablaze, and that Sherman checked the swift flow of his words, and, perhaps not too rejoicefully, held forth a harid in congratulation; that Grant turned to listen to his great subordinate to whom he had said "Some one will suffer" somewhere about five hours earlier. Some one had suffered as the result of that superb dash of Thomas's men at the fire-flashing line of heights some one who now, with his beaten gray legions, was marching away in the moonlight for Dalton, leaving guns, wagons, and by hundreds his dead and wounded behind him some one who, in bygone days, had loved his conqueror of this November afternoon as in his grim heart he had loved no other man some one who loved still to speak of him as "Old Tom," his first lieutenant of "Bragg's Battery of Buena Vista." Yes, even the right bower, Sherman, it was noted, gave place a moment to the man who in silence had seen his men assigned to the roll of supernumeraries in the battle-plot of the day, and in un- spoken triumph had seen them, the understudies, leap suddenly to the center of the stage to save the scene in carrying all before them. Men noted how nervously Cut- ler watched and listened, and then., at a gesture, with unheard-of alacrity for him, stepped quickly forward and joined the little group. One man, an aide-de-camp of the general-in-chief, summoned suddenly to join him, The Rock of Chickamauga. 329 received Grant's quiet order to go, with one of General Thomas's staff, to learn the identity of the dying Con- federate officer to whom Cutler had made allusion, and by him, long afterward, it was admitted that Colonel Cutler had said to General Grant: "You remember, I showed you these things a little before three o'clock, and received your instructions to investigate," and that Gen- eral Grant turned and looked the colonel strangely in the face, and answered: "Investigate? Yes. General Thomas and I wish to know what became of the officer and who he was. Now I am sending Major Bowers," which seemed tantamount to saying he would not trouble Colonel Cutler further. But, though cold-shouldered on the spot, such was Cut- ler's sense of duty, backed by his unswerving conviction that there must be something disloyal about Freeman, as well as others whom he held despitefully, he felt it due to the government, as well as to himself, to prove his case, and if Grant refused to credit, there were others, even higher in authority, who would welcome evidence, or covert, whispered rumor, of disloyalty and disaffection on the part of their subordinates. Worn and weary as were the officers and orderlies about headquarters that wonderful night, there was not one to think of sleep while there was still possibility of crushing Bragg. The sky was cloudless. The moon and the stars shone in brilliant radiance. Sheridan, farther south toward the Chickamauga, was fuming with eagerness to push ahead, and at midnight was given the word. Granger, with twenty thousand of the Army of the Cumberland, was or- 3JO The Rock of Chickamauga. dered to the instant relief of Burnside, sorely beset at Knoxville. Sherman was directed to personally con- duct the pursuit at dawn, and, though there was little hope of rest for anybody, even in the midst of all the din and excitement Freeman and Freeman's cause were not forgotten. Strong arms and loyal hands had borne him to shelter close to Grant's field headquarters. Skilled surgeons looked to the careful binding of his wound. Fulmer hov- ered about him, ceaseless in his devotion. Thomas him- self came to see that all was as well with him as cir- cumstances would permit. Gravely the general told of his brief interview with the chief, and of his sorrow and fears. The portraits found on the dying officer, he said, were old daguerreotypes of his old friend, Mrs. Morgan, and her daughter. The dying officer, in all likelihood, was their beloved, yet estranged, boy Donald. Major Bowers and Captain Wilton were searching now for him. He had fallen close to our lines near Tunnel Hill, and had been dragged within them. Cutler was with his former associates at the time, and they knew the rest. The matter of the flask, which Cutler deemed so grave a bit of evidence, tending to prove Freeman's close con- nection with the Kentucky outlaws the previous year, Freeman's comrades scoffed at. Many of them had reason to remember Freeman having had it as late as the first day of Chickamauga. "Let old Pop Eyes do his damnedest," said Fulmer. "We'll knock his story endwise." And so they might have done could they have been The Rock of Chickamauga. 331 far behind the fighting line, instead of well away toward Atlanta, when at Washington the story was told. Meanwhile there were other matters for both staff and line, graver matters for those members of the staff whose duties bring them ever in closest touch with the fighting force the medical corps. One vast hospital that once peaceful valley had been only eight weeks earlier. Now again field-hospitals lay thick along the heights, and to one of these, over beyond Tunnel Hill, at the northward end, after hours of fruitless searching, came Bowers and Wilton, with a new and anxious volunteer aide, in search of a Confederate officer, reported to have died or been dying early in the afternoon, and they heard of a dozen before they had ridden a mile. They asked for one who had been seen by Colonel Cutler and searched one who might have given the name of Donald Morgan, and they could hear of none. They had seen seven different sur- geons in charge. Bowers had given the description he had received from Cutler's lips, but every surgeon shook his head. Then Wilton had bethought him of big Sam Wetherby, now major of cavalry, serving as division inspector-gen- eral in the Fourteenth Corps, and they stirred him from his blankets and told their story, and Wetherby turned regretfully from his snug bivouac, and sadly led them straightway to a road winding down to the flats where Baird's division had halted early in the morning when sent to the aid of Sherman. "So old Cutler's mixed in this," said he. "That ac- counts for what I heard before the charge." More he 332 The Rock of Chickamauga. would not say until, as he expressed it, he could prove it; and prove it he did at the next "first aid" bivouac they reached, a hospital-camp where lanterns flitted still among the shelters and under tent-flies, where the moon- light fell in unveiled radiance over the swift and silvery waters of the Tennessee. "You had a wounded Confederate officer brought in early in the afternoon," said he to a weary-looking sur- geon. "One watched, or attended, by a man who calls himself O'Reilly orderly or something for Colonel Cut- ler." "Don't know his name," was the instant reply, but de- scriptively "Fellow with a headquarters' pass and a headful of cheek? Says he is on special service?" "That's the galoot," said Wetherby, in the terse ver- nacular of the day. "This way," said the doctor, and, leading on past many a prostrate form, stretched in patient suffering on un- screened blanket, he finally came to a tent-fly, pegged and stretched, on the outskirts nearest the stream, and here, unconscious, moaning, lay beneath the shelter a tall, dark-haired, haggard youth, whose yellow-trimmed jacket of gray had been thrown open at the throat and chest, and into whose ashen face Wetherby gazed but a single instant before he exclaimed : "Thank God!" Whereat a burly form scrambled from underneath a brand-new blanket and heaved up to its feet, staring, startled, at the official visitors; then speedily assuming an air of independent, impudent unconcern. To him the The Rock of Chickamauga. 333 officers paid no attention. The eyes of the three were on Wetherby, and Wetherby turned sharply on the stranger. "O'Reilly, what are you doing here ?" "Obeying orders, sir." "Whose ?" "I take 'em from Colonel Cutler, but they come mostly from higher yet." "And what have you to do with this wounded officer ?" "Stay by him, sir, in case he comes to and wants any- thing." "Doctor Carnes, was he searched? Had he papers or anything ?" "All gone before he got to my hands, major ; this man says they were taken to General Grant." Wetherby turned and silently motioned his comrades to follow. Once weft outside, he stopped. "Did the man tell you the name of the wounded officer ?" he asked. "Said he was Lieutenant Don Morgan, of Kentucky that Colonel Cutler and he both knew his people there," was the prompt answer. Wetherby looked back. The burly form was just com- ing forth under the fly, as though to join them, and with unmistakable emphasis Wetherby called: "You said you had orders to stay there, O'Reilly. We've no need of you." "I thought maybe the major would be having instruc- tions. Sure I'd never know what's best for him." "You can ask the doctor, then. I have business with him now. That'll do, O'Reilly." Once fairly out of ear-shot of the would-be listener, 334 The Rock of Chickamauga. Wetherby again halted and faced his friends. "Gentle- men," said he, "for reasons I can't fathom that runt has been set to watch that poor young fellow in yonder. Do you think he'll live, doctor?" "One chance in four," was the sententious answer. "Well, for his own sake, don't help him too much. He'll never thank you ; nor would I." For a moment the three looked doubtfully into Weth- erby's sorrowful face. "You knew young Morgan?" asked Bowers. "I knew young Morgan, yes. That's why I said thank God." "Then this isn't " "Not a bit of it! Though I don't mind that black- guard's believing so, and letting us onto his game. The poor lad dying there like a gentleman will never get Don Morgan, or your friend Freeman here, into another scrape. God forgive him for the many of his own! That's Jack Barbour." CHAPTER XXIX. Christmastide at Chattanooga, and there was jubilee in the camps where chagrin and starvation were masters in October. Supplies were abundant. Boxes from home, and dainties from the sanitary commission, had come in car-loads. Congratulations had poured in upon the vic- torious army, yet all was not content within its ranks. Saddled long with misrepresentation, it had become al- most second nature to the Army of the Cumberland to be misunderstood, and even now its evil fortune followed it. The divisions of Thomas without, if not against, or- ders, as Grant would have it, had scaled the heights and won the day, when the divisions of Sherman were held powerless at Tunnel Hill. Now, the winners had to read in the papers, and hear on every hand, that their exploit was a bagatelle, that Bragg had sent all his men to hold Sherman, and there was nothing but a skirmish- line to oppose the charge of the Cumberland. In the distributions of honors, rewards, and promotions that fol- lowed the brilliant victory there came but scanty share to our friends who so long and faithfully had borne the heat and burden of the day. Not until many months after did the truth begin to be known that the field was won ex- actly as had not been planned that Sherman's men who were sent to sweep the ridge were forced to stand ; that Thomas's men, who were bidden to stand, had of their own motion swept the ridge. Not until the war was 336 The Rock of Chickamauga. ended was it proved that, so far from being opposed by a mere skirmish-line, there were more brigades in gray than were in blue in the grapple in front of Thomas, and three of the brigades opposing Sherman had double- quicked to the south and flung themselves on the left of the charging line. And so again had Thomas to try "not to feel"; to sit in silence; to see the favorites of the administration re- warded ; to see his loyal subordinates neglected ; some of them, indeed, made to suffer. There had been a somber scene enacted one late after- noon, the first week in December. There had been a strange gathering about the bedside of a dying Confed- erate, whom the surgeons had snatched from earlier death and restored to temporary consciousness. He knew his end was near. He asked that certain of his kith and kin be sent for. They had not far to come. He had asked to see Ned Freeman, and, pale and weak, but once again upon his feet, the latter had been shown to the solemn presence. Several days earlier Major Bowers and his colleague had told Wetherby's tale at headquar- ters, and Major Sam had confirmed it. He knew Bar- bour well ; had done his best, he said, to capture him in '61, when first he realized that it must be Barbour who planned and headed those midnight raids in the rear of the Union lines. A daring fellow ever, he seemed to be- come desperate when certain of his people disowned his deeds when it became known that Colonel Morgan had closed his doors to him. The keenest sorrow, possibly, of the old Virginian's life was when his beloved boy re- The Rock of Chickamauga. 337 fused to break with Barbour. That Donald should have joined the army of the South was no surprise, nor dis- credit. What the father would not tolerate was his son's connection with any partizan or guerrilla work any night-riding in disguise, and that for months they knew was Barbour's business that they feared, and Barbour would have them believe, was Donald's. That Barbour should later have done as Donald did, as soon as the latter was over his wound don the uni- form and draw the sword of a commissioned officer in the Confederate service had not served to restore him to honor in Colonel Morgan's regard, nor even among many of his associates. Between Donald and himself there had been estrangement ever since the episode of the running off of the cavalry horses from The Oaks. They had been the means of carrying Don Morgan to safety, but not until days thereafter, when his father's indignant letter came, did Donald know the truth that, so far from being captured from the bivouac of a cavalry patrol in the open field, they had been run off from his own house, in such a way as to still further cloud with suspic- ion his father's name, and to involve in possible disgrace a generous adversary and gentleman, Don Morgan's ben- efactor, Lieutenant Edgar Freeman, of the Union Army. Confronted with this letter, the differences already begun had widened to open rupture. Morgan had abandoned and cut dead his former chum, his sister's unaccepted lover. It had served to discredit Barbour among the many gen- tlemen of the Confederate service, so he had thought to win distinction by displays of reckless daring. One of 338 The Rock of Chickamauga. these came the night of Chickamauga, and resulted in his capture in front of Gracie's lines by a patrol from Negley's division. That night he became Ned Freeman's guest and, a second time, the beneficiary of his soldier charity. Next day, in the debacle, he was recaptured. At Mission Ridge he had essayed a daring bit of indi- vidual reconnaissance near Tunnel Hill, and was shot twice and unhorsed in the attempt. Now, he was dying; had sent for his mother ; had asked to see Ned Freeman, that he might beg his pardon, and Freeman listened in bewilderment, and for the third time, to the voice that had hailed him, first the dripping night at The Oaks and again at Chickamauga no wonder it had there sounded familiar. The tale was brief. Donald had run foul of some Union patrols and been chased the night he rode away from the Helms' to join Barbour at a rendezvous on the west fork. "The night Donald rode away!" interrupted Freeman, in amaze, with joy and dismay mingling in his tones. Certainly. Donald had promised to see his sister once again before fully deciding. They had arranged signals like those they had seen in a play at Laura Keene's Theater a while before the war. No wonder Freeman recognized them. They had their meeting, Donald and his sister. The same night, later, he was pursued, but managed to make his way to Claibornes', and later to join him Barbour. Possibly Mr. Freeman had heard of Don's infatuation. Don was there in hiding when Freeman called. Don was there again that same evening when the signal shone from The Oaks, sum- The Rock of Chickamauga. 339 moning him to a meeting with his sister, and, taking Don's horse, Barbonr had hastened over to Claibornes' to warn him he was wanted. Leaving the horse at the barn, he was cautiously approaching the house when he heard the sound of affray, a shriek for aid, then the shot. He reached the spot just as Freeman was felled, and downed the big brute who had struck from behind. Then Donald, for whom it seems the men were seeking, scrambled from the window of the room in which Kate had locked him, and the assailants, badly beaten, were put to flight. But then, of course, he and Donald had to flee, as the soldiers, they reasoned, would be back in force. He and Donald had first helped carry Freeman to the house, and then vanished for weeks. Early in January, after Mill Springs, they had returned, Barbour acting under in- structions from Nashville. Yes, it was guerrilla work, but the inducement was such he could not refuse. One night Donald was shot in the leg in a scrimmage with pickets. Colonel Morgan and his wife and Miss Morgan were away from home. The cavalry were hot on the trail of their comrades. They were at their wit's end for means to get Donald out of danger, when that rainy night brought answer to his (Barbour's) tentative signal, and Barbour himself went to The Oaks, believing that in spite of her prohibition he, instead of Donald, might see her. Freeman knew the rest. Then it was Donald, her brother, whom she had met that night at the Helms' ; Donald to whom she had mur- mured and in whose arms, probably, she had wept. Then 34O The Rock of Chickamauga. it was not Donald, as Kate Glaiborne had assured him, who was his rescuer that night of struggle at the humble home. Then it was true, as Frances Morgan had indig- nantly declared, that she had not seen Mr. Jack Bar- hour. Then it was true that Frances Morgan had full warrant for her indignation at him, Edgar Freeman. It was true that his accusation had been insult. "Will you tell me one thing?" he said presently. "Is it true that you gave it to be understood that I suggested your taking the horses, and showed you how it could be done that I had practically aided ?" "You sent money and a message to Morgan," slowly gasped the prostrate man. "You said, now you were square." "I had reason to believe it was he who came to my aid that night at Claibornes'. I learned that he was wounded and in peril, and of course I sent him money and a mes- sage. But why should you have sought to ruin me?" A curious look came into the dying eyes. A spasm of pain distorted the pallid lips. "Men of your own cloth were doing that," said he, "and they had no such reason as I had. You were winning what I had tried to win for years, and I hated you. Now, it's all over and I'm done." And then a woman's voice was heard in the adjoining room, a sobbing appeal for pity and help for her boy. "Poor mother !" groaned Barbour, and turned his face to the wall. The doctor bent over him, then silently mo- tioned Freeman that he would better go. For a moment The Rock of Chickamauga. 341 the young officer hesitated, strove to speak, then turned and tiptoed to the outer air. What was there to say? Fulmer was waiting. "Did you see her, his mother?'' he asked. Freeman shook his head and moved on. He wished, he needed to be alone and to think. "She only got here yesterday, you know. She begged to see General Thomas this morning, but he was too far away. I suppose he explained how he got the pictures/' "I knew/' said Freeman shortly. What Barbour had not explained was how he came to keep them, but this also Freeman could understand. There was no need to explain. That picture represented all of Frances Mor- gan a broken and hapless lover had really won. A few days longer the mortal wound, the skill and efforts of the surgeons, suffered him to linger. Thrice there came to him prisoners like himself, two officers of rank, who had been captured in the impetuous rush on the entrenchments. Gravely, gently they sought to com- fort the weeping mother with tales of the high regard and reputation he had won among his fellows in the Confederate gray. Daring, dashing, and efficient he had certainly been, but in some way Bragg and Breckinridge, gentlemen both of the old school, had knowledge of his earlier war history, and could not give it the stamp of their tolerance. It was such work as might be set to groundlings of the O'Reilly type. It was something a gentleman should have shunned. And even as these, his fellow soldiers, sought oppor- tunity to comfort him and the almost heart-broken mother, "that man O'Reilly" hovered about in obvious The Rock of Chickamauga. hope of interview of some kind. It could hardly be to comfort. It was probably to spy. Cutler had gone to Washington, summoned thither, it was said, by orders from the war department, and Grant was not there to bid him God-speed. "He's left his cur- dog behind," said Wetherby. "Now, let's see what for. ' The solution came in the queerest way. Busy as was Wetherby at division headquarters, the intense clannish- ness that makes so many Kentuckians kin held him to almost daily visits to Mrs. Barbour, if only to see her for a moment and strive to be of aid. One evening he and Bowers came together, and in the doorway, caught un- awares, stood, or rather slunk, O'Reilly^ Two Confed- erate officers, the prisoners above mentioned, were just coming out, after a brief call upon their unhappy friend. Their escort stood ready to take them to their rude quar- ters, but all men stopped a moment at sound of Weth- erby's voice. "I thought we were rid of you, O'Reilly, yet here you are, sneaking and spying again. Now, by God, you show your papers or get out of this !" "I take my orders from Colonel Cutler, not from you," was the sullen answer. "Even General Thomas can't in- terfere with me and he knows enough not to try it." Blustering, defiant, insolent, he had begun, but all on a sudden a remarkable change came over him. The flush- ing face turned almost yellow-gray. The bold eyes glared, blinked, and fell. He stood like a man stricken with instant palsy, for at sound of his first words the foremost Confederate, an officer of artillery, captured The Rock of Chickamauga. 343 close to Bragg's headquarters, turned quickly, and with amaze and recognition in his soldierly face, gazed stead- ily, menacingly, upon the speaker. Then it was the turn of Bowers and Wetherby to look astonished, and to seek of the newcomer explanation. "Better stop that man," spoke the Southerner quietly, for O'Reilly had begun to sidle away. "Back here, you!" shouted Wetherby. "If you won't hear me, you will hear Major Bowers, who speaks for General Grant," and Bowers nodded approval. "I mean to settle here and now whether you have right to be spying. Lieutenant," this to the officer of the little guard, "I've seen enough to make me believe that man a thief, and I charge you not to let him get away." Whereat, willingly enough, two bayonets were leveled at the hulking back, and, with dread in his eyes, O'Reilly saw himself surrounded. "You seem to know this speci- men, major," went on Wetherby, all excitement now, "and if looks don't belie him, he has reason to know you." The answer came so that all present could hear and understand, and none forget it: "Know him ? Damn him ! I know him for a thief, as you say, and a deserter from General Bragg's battery before we got to Buena Vista a deserter to the enemy. I was a sergeant sergeant of the battery guard the night the captain ordered him spread-eagled on the spare wheel for abusing a Mexican woman. Lieutenant Thomas was battery officer of the day and had to superintend it. The man cursed him to his face, and I gagged him for it. 344 The Rock of Chickamauga. The next day he was gone, and a good horse with him. Take us before General Thomas and he will sustain what I say." This, then, accounted for O'Reilly, his hatred of Major Slow Trot, and all that was his Rolfe, of the old regiment even of Freeman. This accounted, pos- sibly, for his readiness to do dirty work of any kind. It might even account for his alliance with and usefulness to Cutler. There was no need to drag him before Gen- eral Thomas. Bowers took responsibility as the repre- sentative of the commanding general, and that night O'Reilly raged and raved to heedless ears, a prisoner un- der guard. "Freeman," said Wetherby, the following morning, as the young men met at the provost marshal's office, "Mrs. Barbour would take it as a kindness if you will see her a moment. I don't reckon that poor fellow has more'n a day to live." And so again Freeman found himself at the bedside of the dying soldier of the South, a grief-bowed worriari kneeling beside him. Barbour's mind had been wander- ing. He had changed gravely, greatly in the three days; He was well-nigh spent, but he knew Freeman knew him at once, although he had looked only blankly at others whom he had known better and longer. His lips moved, but the words were inaudible. The pleading face of the mother, wan and tear-stained, was uplifted to the visitor. "You have won everything he would have given every- thing to win," she sobbed. "Oh, can't you say the word The Rock of Chickamauga. 345 forgiveness?" And in silence Freeman knelt beside her, and took the cold and feeble hand. His eyes were still moist and dim when, a few min- utes later, he stepped forth into the hall and sought the outer air, but his name was called at the office. It was the ring of the cordial voice, the grasp of the hand, that told him this was Rolfe who had welcomed and was leading him within, where stood an elderly gentleman in civilian dress, where was seated a pallid-faced, auburn- haired girl in mourning. Freeman's eyes were swim- ming, as he parted from the stricken woman in the ad- joining room. His head was swimming now as he bent to greet the woman from whom he had parted in hot anger over a year before the girl in mourning whom he now knew he had wronged, and who now, God help him ! he could not hope would ever forgive him. And even if she could and would what then? CHAPTER XXX. They had come, convoyed by Rolfe, in hopes of news of Donald, and there was none to give them. They had been shocked, and the poor mother prostrated, by the tidings, wired by way of Louisville, that Don had been captured, mortally wounded, at Mission Ridge. They had been unable to leave the mother, but were speedily reassured as to the boy by wire from General Thomas. It was Barbour, not Donald, whom they were called upon to mourn. Yet cause remained for deep anxiety. Not one word had been received from, or of, Don since Chickamauga the battle that had bereaved so many thousand hearts that had left so many women widowed and desolate, South and North. Over a month had Mrs. Morgan spent at the bedside of her kind friend and neighbor, Mrs. Helm, whose husband had fallen among the foremost in his daring gray brigade, and now the widow in her turn was striving to comfort the mother crying for her first born, while the old colonel took train for Chattanooga, his devoted daughter by his side. A rumor had come, through Confederate sources, that Donald lay at Rome severely wounded. If so, surely the victors in the great battle of November would put no ban on the father's seeking and succoring him where he lay. And it had been Freeman's fortune to meet them thus within the hour of their arrival, to convey to them the news that poor Barbour could not live, but that, when The Rock of Chickamauga. 347 last heard of at Chickamauga, Donald was unhurt and on active duty. General Thomas, he felt sure, could ascertain whether there was an atom of truth in the story from Rome. He would make it his business to see the general, and inform them as to the result. That was the extent of the interview between them, father and daughter on one side, Freeman on the other. He left them as they had come, with Rolfe, and went his way. It was another day before he saw them again, and Rolfe again was by her side. Lodgings had been found for them; inquiries had been made; officers of rank and distinction had called on Colonel Morgan to express sym- pathy and tender service. Rolfe had come to say good- by. The "Children of Israel" were clamoring for his return. He was to command the brigade in which they were serving. Colonel Bostwick, unlamented, had quit the army and gone home to run for Congress on his record and the Copperhead ticket. "The war is a fail- ure" was his slogan, and that of his party. At corps headquarters it was said that he left pursued by charges of misconduct in face of the enemy, but that would not hurt him among those whose suffrages he sought. There were officers of distinction calling on Colonel Morgan even now, for Thomas had sent in word urging every possible attention for his old friend, and so it happened that Freeman could not see him at the moment. He was shown instead into the humble little parlor and sitting- room combined, where sat in such mourning garb as she had been able to get together at The Oaks, a presence with tear-brimming, beautiful eyes and sweetly pallid 348 The Rock of Chickamauga. face, looking up into the handsome, soldierly features of Colonel Ruddy Rolfe, who was bending over her and holding her slender hand, in attitude at once knightly, devoted, and detestable. The fact that he was bidding her be of good cheer as well as good-by that he felt sure her brother would be restored to her would but slightly have reassured Mr. Freeman, who stood a silent, embarrassed, and miserable witness ; by far, as an officer and gentleman, the less presentable picture of the two. Happiness and a new New York uniform are great beautifiers, and Rolfe had come and was going in both. Freeman, gaunt, shabby, and sorrowful, would have slunk away had not Rolfe felt a tug of the little hand in his, caught a sudden look of the uplifted eyes, and then a glimpse of his tall lieutenant, just backing out of the narrow door. He hailed him instantly, his voice cordial and ringing: "Hold on, Ned!" (How brotherly it sounded to all but jealous ears!) "Don't go. Wait for me here while I say good-by to the crowd. I'm off to the regiment in an hour, and was going from here to find you. Missed you last night. Where on earth were you?" Then, never waiting for reply, he went bustling out into the sunshine, and for the first time in ages Ned Freeman found himself with Frances Morgan, alone. She half-rose from the prim little horsehair sofa, and he stood half-way across the little, old-fashioned, provin- cial sitting-room, close to the wood-burning, open- hearthed stove. "I came to say that we'll know by night about that The Rock of Chickamaugft. 349 story from Rome," he began. "General Thomas believes it untrue, but started instant inquiry last evening." "Father knows," was the quiet answer, "Have you news of Mr. Barbour?" . He faltered a little. "Didn't the colonel tell you? They thought him gone an hour ago." "They were mistaken. I had a message from his mother, later, but at any moment it might be. She was to send for me then, and I thought possibly you came for that." He shook his head, and stood one moment in deep de- jection. He owed her apology, yet his tongue refused to speak, nor would she help him. She might have walked away to the window and turned her back upon him, but she would not even do that. In the absurd, tight-waisted, balloon-skirted dress of the period, relieved only by the simple little white collar at the throat the ugliest garb ever worn by beautiful woman she stood before him now, her eyes, soft and brimming but a mo- ment ago, now almost hard and scornful. In glance, in air, in attitude, she was bidding him speak, if he had anything to say, and begone if he had not. It was a hope- less situation at best, and hopeless, helpless, he stood and looked at her. "I have been learning a lot about you," he began awk- wardly, miserably, and the beginning was the ending. She checked him with uplifted hand. "Don't trouble yourself to talk of it," she said. "You were mistaken. I was mistaken, and you both have my best wishes," and before he could recover from his 350 The Rock of Chickamauga. amaze there came quick footsteps in the hall, and her father's voice and Rolfe's. She was needed at once. She was gone. They told him later, for he did not see Frances how Barbour had died how, for two days after, the girl hardly left the heart-broken mother. Jack had been that poor mother's spoiled and petted darling. She had "so hoped to see him settled," but everything had gone wrong, and now everything was over for him and for her. Not until they took her to the crowded train and saw her safely away did Frances leave her. They would have gone with her but that wonderful news had come. Donald was indeed wounded, but not in Rome. Donald had been brought into Cleveland, was to be carried to hospital-camp up the Tennessee, was doing famously, said the despatch, and they were to meet him there. Not fpr another year did Edgar Freeman see her face again. And what a year! There was scattering of the armies and their leaders before they rang the old year out, the hopeful new year in. Bragg had gone under. Unloved by his men be- cause of his harsh measures, there was none to grieve when he stood relieved of command. Longstreet had gone to Knoxville, whither Grant and Sherman followed and tricked him of the expected triumph over Burnside. Groom and groomsman in the quiet little army wedding of the long ago, Grant and Longstreet again had come together, the latter now no longer "best man," but only second best. Then Burnside stood relieved, first of his peril, and then of his command; and then, this matter The Rock of Chickamauga. 351 settled, there came new distribution : Grant making head- quarters at Nashville ; Sherman going back to Memphis ; and, with nothing especial to do for the time being, Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland were held about Chattanooga, where they were far removed from Washington, and the newspapers where it wasn't long before they found again how true it is that the absent get the worst of everything. The campaign, the hard knocks, the certain something of which he could not speak to any one, had played havoc with Freeman's health, and in late December they had him in hospital, which was how he failed to see the Morgans when they came floating down the Tennessee with the convalescing Don, en route for Stevenson and then home by rail, paroled. In January they had Free- man up, but so run down that the medical officers said home nursing was what he needed, and his general saw it and wrote himself to Grant. There was to be "nothing doing" of consequence until spring, and the quiet yet forceful one sent him on to Louisville and thence to the mother and sister on the Hudson, preceded by letters from Ruddy Rolfe that prepared them for his plight. Two months in such hands went far toward his restora- tion, two months during which there came many a letter with the Chattanooga military postmark for sister Elsie, whose contents seemed to give her much more joy than general information. There came several letters with the New Orleans postmark for himself, letters whose contents were a mystery to the mother and a misery to their one reader. The Rock of Chickamauga. With March came stirring news Grant made lieu- tenant-general and ordered to the East in supreme com- mand of all the forces in the field; Sherman to succeed him in command of the military division of the Missis- sippi, and Thomas, as usual, being left about where he was. A reputation for being a "stayer" is sometimes used to one's disadvantage. And Grant had been busy, striving to reestablish cer- tain fallen idols whom he thought harshly dealt with. He had been pleading with the powers for Buell, for McClel- Jan, even for Fremont. He had strived to restore Mc- Cook, Crittenden, and Negley, shorn of their commands as a result of Chickamauga and other misfortunes, but }iis efforts had not been crowned with success. Buell would not take the billet offered him, because it threw him under Sherman, an older and a wiser man. Mc- Clellan had decided to stop soldiering and run for Presi- dent. Fremont was out of the question; and the iron secretary, still backed by Halleck, would not listen to propositions in favor of the others. As for Thomas, there had been something said about Granger's not start- ing for Knoxville, as ordered there was ever something buzzing in secretarial ears about Southern affiliations and Virginia kinship. There was ever, that sodden spring about the war department, a certain pale-faced, pop-eyed, Ian tern- jawed, mephistophelean, busybody of a colonel, worming himself in at every conceivable opportunity. There was a new story about Thomas trafficking with the enemy in the interests of young Kentucky officers and old Virginia families. There was a man up from Chat- The Rock of Chickamauga. tanooga who had been in the secret service in some ca- pacity, and the very day that Grant came down the dim corridor of the old war department building from his first visit to the secretary's office there was a scene. A crowd had gathered at the entrance, and, face to face, just within it, two parties came into collision the silent, thoughtful, bearded general, hurrying out, with a few of his staff, and a tall, sallow, smooth-faced colonel, attended by a burly civilian, hastening in. Ignoring the fact that he was almost rudely jostled by the tall officer, whose eyes, not yet adjusted to the gloomy interior, had failed to place him, Grant pushed sturdily ahead. Not so pugnacious little Bowers, who, on his left, had been butted into, and for a second forced back. In that second he had recognized his antagonist, and in the next he opened on him : "It's barely three months since you were kicked out of Chattanooga, and now here you are at Washington. Colonel Cutler, you've been told this man was a deserter and a thief, yet you still consort with him." "He has not yet, sir, outlived his usefulness," was Cut- ler's reply, after seeing Grant fairly beyond ear-shot. "Well, he may be tolerated here" said Bowers hotly, "but there's one place he won't be, and that's at the head- quarters of the army," and with that he went bounding after his chief, leaving the oddly assorted pair to lose themselves in the long corridor. Oddly enough, reporting at Washington within an- other day, Ned Freeman heard of the incident as he sat 354 The Rock of Chickamauga. at WillarcTs, and he knew, without the mention of a name, just who Cutler's companion must be. Disheartened by his treatment at Springfield, where junior officers had again been promoted over his head; backed by earnest letters from General Thomas and the personal aid of a most distinguished senator, Freeman had come to ask of the President a commission as a lieu- tenant in the regular service. They had made him a captain and additional aide-de-camp, but that was in the volunteers and outranked by many a contemporary. What he sought was the regular establishment. Many such commissions had been given to men in civil life, from the volunteers and from the ranks, so why not to him? It was a raw March morning. The White House looked bedraggled and dismal. The usual crowd hung noisily about the stairway and the corridor. The old anteroom was crowded, and a full hour's wait was nec- essary before even Senator Harris could be received. Freeman stalked beside him, tall, slender, and looking at last "very fit," and so did the new uniform, but his heart beat loudly as they were ushered into the presence of the great President. Freeman had never seen him before. Never did he see him again; but never could he forget him. Lincoln was lounging at a broad-topped desk, dictating to a secretary, while three or four dis- tinguished men, whom Freeman recognized at once from the pictures he had seen, stood aside, exchanging some- what ceremonious greeting with his guide. In utter con- trast to their formal manner, extending a huge, bony hand to the newcomer, but without removing the other The Rock of Chickamauga. 355 from his pocket or his leg from the table, Mr. Lincoln fin- ished his paragraph, then turned a pair of deep-set, mournful, dark eyes upon his latest caller. "Senator," said he, "I wish you had happened in before General Grant left. I wanted you to meet him. He looked as little like a soldier as I do like a saint, but he's got it in him. He makes even Stanton back water." Telling of it later, the senator said he came within an ace of saying, "I'm glad to hear it," which, in view of his errand, might not have been politic. "I had one look, and two words from him, Mr. President," was the reply, "and I have come to present Captain Freeman, of General Thomas's staff, that he may present General Thomas's letter." The President's somber eyes lighted. He looked with genuine interest into the face of the young soldier, as he shook his hand. "I am glad to see anybody from Gen- eral Thomas," said he, "and to read his letter." This he did at once, with keen appreciation in his face, and yet it clouded. "We'll have to see Stanton about this," he said. "That little regular army's his special province, somehow, and I don't seem to get into it once in a coon's age. They tell me I said it was easier to make a man brigadier-general in the volunteers than second lieutenant in Stanton's reserves, but we can try it," and he scratched a few lines on the back of the envelope, "and wish you the best of luck." Then, almost before Freeman could thank him, the President had turned away and button- holed a waiting senator. An hour later, without Senator Harris, Freeman was 356 Thf Rock of Chickamauga. summoned to enter a dimly lighted room in the war de- partment building; found himself facing a stout-built man, with a massive head, a huge brow, broad and high ; a somewhat pallid face, framed in gray hair and ragged beard, frowning up at him through steel-rimmed spec- tacles. Without a word he almost snatched the letter from Freeman's extended hand; glanced at the Presi- dent's words; scowled; tore open the sheet; read barely five lines, and burst out, turning crimson as he spoke : "The regular army ? No, sir ! Not if a dozen generals asked it! You will go back to duty or stay in arrest Show the gentleman out!" CHAPTER XXXI. What a year, indeed! In May the two great armies of the Union, with Grant and Sherman, respectively, at their heads, pushed southward, one on Richmond, the other on Atlanta. Between the former and the threat- ened capital stood ever that cavalier commander, Lee finest soldier of the South forcing our stubborn leader to turn aside and imprinting upon the records of the Army of the Potomac the heaviest yet of all its solemn rosters of killed, wounded, and missing. Between the latter and the Gate City interposed "Joe" Johnston, loved by his President as little as was his predecessor, Bragg, by the people and the Southern press. Manfully did Johnston oppose the "meteoric" Sherman, forcing on him many a bloody fight, but losing at the last Atlanta and his official head. In the East Lee had fought Grant to a stand that was destined to last well into another year. In the West Sherman had decided to cut loose from At- lanta and hew a way through the Southland to the sea. Then suddenly there loomed another meteor in the firma- ment another of the galaxy of stars that shot from the old Second Cavalry, the regiment that gave so many generals to both sides. Thomas's lieutenant of five years back, young, vehement, vigorous a fighter, albeit an arm had been wrecked at Gettysburg and a leg lost at Chicka- maiiga was given the command of a powerful force and bidden to strike for Nashville and the cities of the 358 The Rock of Chickamauga. Ohio, even as Sherman started for the sea. An army had to be improvised to meet him and defend. Who bet- ter than his former major could know and handle Hood? Who better than Thomas could defend ? And so at last, in the fall of '64, we find our long- time head of the subordinate Army of the Cumberland at the head of an independent but scattered army in the field, a motley, ill-conditioned force, perhaps, but still an independent command. There was the remnant of the old Fourth Corps, now under that stanch fighter, Stan- ley. There was the later edition of the Army of the Ohio under an as yet untried general, Schofield, the sol- dier, scholar, and diplomat. There was little cavalry worth mention. There were not many light guns. Sher- man naively wrote, "I will send back to you all the dis- mounted cavalry, the ineffectives, the sick, wounded, etc.," and out of these our patient and apparently phleg- matic chief was to improvise a fighting force to beat Hood, who had half a dozen veteran divisions, led by such war-tried veterans as Cleburne, Cheatham, Stewart, and S. D. Lee, and not a day was to be lost. The bloodiest battle of its size was that of Franklin, fought by Schofield and Stanley to delay Hood at the Harpeth, while Thomas spurred to Nashville to man its defenses. It cost the Confederacy some seven thousand fighting men, with gallant Pat Cleburne shot dead among his charging lines. It staggered Hood for the needed day or two, and then on he came the remaining twenty miles; then halted for reflection. In full view of the fine State capitol he found himself, as at Franklin, faced The Rock of Chickamauga. 359 by bristling lines of works, black guns on every crest and height, blue overcoats at every opening and embrasure. Daring a fighter as he was, the butchery at the Harpeth had taught him caution. In memory his old major's in- domitable stand at Chickamauga still lived and warned, and now the sight of that old-time major's dispositions well might "give him pause." It was Hood's first falter, and, with all its wisdom, it cost him dear. For winter had come again, and while the great army of Grant and Meade was stalled in front of Petersburg, and that of Sherman, in light marching order and superb physical trim, was striding from Atlanta to the sea, the government at Washington and the people behind it could .not brook the sight of this insolent army of invaders, camped in threatening lines, encompassing around about the stately capitol of Tennessee. Hood had come on con- quest bent and had been balked of his prize, but that was by no means enough. What Washington demanded was his instant annihilation, and the great war secretary could not be made to see that before Thomas could begin to annihilate he must have the tools. With his guns and infantry he stood ready to deal out another Franklin if Hood once more dared attack. But to take the offensive himself to attack a foeman of equal prow- ess behind his own entrenchments, he should have su- perior force, and in order to overwhelm and annihilate he must have horsemen. With Hood was that born cav- alry leader, Forrest, with some ten thousand well- mounted, born-to-the-saddle troopers. With Thomas were the so-called cavalry Sherman had dismounted at Atlanta, 360 The Rock of Chickamauga. distributing their horses among his divisions and sending their former riders to report afoot, and in deep disgust, at Nashville. Straining every nerve, Thomas was work- ing night and day to recall the convalescents sent home to vote (and not yet returned to shoot as they had voted), striving to secure remounts for the dismounted men that he might have something in saddle to oppose to Forrest. Then, too, arms, ammunition, and supplies had to be provided for the quartermaster's employees, for the con- valescents, the ineffectives, and others the "discards of Sherman's deck." Then, too, it was raining, raining dismally. The skies were gloom, the roads were sodden, the fields were swamps, but if nothing else was in work- ing order, the telegraph was, "the government at Wash- ington still lived," and day and night Thomas was being poked, prodded, and goaded. The sapient press was lending vehement hand, to the end that before that expe- rienced trooper had so much as a squadron shod, bitted, and saddled, the North was howling at him because he had not attacked. Before half his cavalry was in shape to travel appeal had changed to demand, and then to posi- tive orders : Attack, attack instantly, and put an end to the shame of the situation. Yet what was the shame? Franklin was fought just before dark on the very last day of November. Not un- til three days later did Hood appear before Nashville. Only three days had he been allowed to rest there, yet on December 6th, late in the evening, came this peremp- tory mandate from the general-in-chief, a thousand miles away : "Attack at once and wait no longer," The Rock of Chickamauga. 361 Attack at once, with his commands still scattered, with many of his cavalry still afoot, with only one brigade in saddle. It was hard. It was hazardous. Never yet had Freeman seen his great, patient leader so sorely tried, so furiously assailed. "Too much like the McClellan and Rosecrans strategy of do nothing," Stanton had wired of it to Grant at City Point, and Grant was over-per- suaded. The old cry was echoing through camp and court of those farthest from the scene : "Thomas is slow." "Thomas is inert." "Thomas never could fight unless forced to it." "Thomas will lurk till the chance is lost." "When Thomas has all the men he wants Hood will have slipped away." Forgotten were Mill Springs and Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Mission Ridge in the fury of editorial sarcasm and bureau denuncia- tion. "Relieve him," said his enemies. "Take him out," screamed the press. "Come and see for yourself. Re- lieve me if you will," said Thomas respectfully. "But attack I could not before, and now can only obey. Dis- positions shall be made at once." Even then, on the 7th, outlying commands had to be drawn in, and that took another day. Not until the morn- ing of the gth could the silent, sorely harassed leader issue the order to attack, and then, as though to give him needed time and still further strengthen his hand, Provi- dence itself at last took sides with Thomas, and a direful storm of freezing rain swept the valley of the Cumber- land and coated the fields and roads with ice. Men and horses slipped and fell. Neither side could march or maneuver. Attack was out of the question, and the 362 The Rock of Chickamauga. word Grant wired in exasperation by noon was recalled before night. He had ordered his great subordinate to turn over the command to Schofield and step aside. God be thanked that order never reached the men! All the next day and the next that storm prevailed, equaled only by the storm of abuse and censure from the North. On the afternoon of the nth, yielding again to pressure, Grant wired to delay no longer, no matter what the weather; and still, as neither horse nor man could keep his feet, the Rock refused to move. Then Logan, the Black Eagle, got the word to rush by rail to Nashville and take over the command. But even Logan could not get there until the I4th, by which time Grant, too, had started from City Point, and the North was fairly shriek- ing denunciation. That very day a warm wind swept up from the south, and thawed away the armor of ice and sleet. That very afternoon our long-suffering, but in- domitable, soldier called his generals together. That very afternoon his orders were issued. That night there was stir and excitement in all the camps within the Union lines at Nashville, and, in the dull and dripping dawn of the 1 5th, just as at Chickamauga, a dense fog obscured the view, but could not check the move, and at last the lion came forth from his lair and sprang upon the foe. That night the cabinet sat at Washington to hear the astonishing despatch that had just met General Grant: "Attacked enemy's left this morning ; drove it from the river below the city very nearly to Franklin Pike, dis- tance about eight miles." And in these modest words did Thomas report the The Rock of Chickamauga. 363 result of as scientific, masterly, and gallant a battle as ever was fought in America, and after a few moments of gasping incredulity and amaze the North burst into a storm of applause and congratulation that swept the country even as the lines of Thomas had swept the sodden fields. It was incomprehensible ! It was incred- ible ! But it was so, and yet not the half of what was to follow on the morrow. Will they ever forget it, they who followed "Old Slow Trot" that dismal, dripping, yet glorious, day? Feinting with his left, he had hurled Steedman on the earthworks at the east of Hood's encircling lines, battling so hard that it seemed as though by sheer force of weight and numbers he could sweep the defenders before him; yet, all the time, under the screen of the fog and the skirmish- ing troopers afoot, long columns in blue had crept out southwestward, brushing aside the gray vedettes; then facing full south and southeast, like a succession of long ocean waves, had come rolling in on Hood's left flank and whirling it up the slopes. By noon the fog had drifted from the field ; by night the foe had followed suit. Mile after mile, ridge after ridge, the lines of Hood had been hammered back, fighting hard to hold the Hardin Pike, but losing it and eight of their guns; fighting harder to hold the Hillsboro Pike, but giving way before the stop-at-nothing rush of the lines of Wood and A. J. Smith. Then Schofield, held in reserve, swung afar out to the south and lapped in around the Confederate left, to the end that the line of retreat was threatened, and only night could save the day to Hood. It came all too soon. 364 The Rock of Chickamauga. The short wintry day was done at five o'clock, and, with seventeen guns left behind him and some twelve hundred prisoners, the Southern leader had to look to his flanks and rear, for, slow as he had been to strike, "Old Safety" had been fatally, horribly sure. Back to the Overton Hills Hood led his stunned and stricken lines. This was anything but the sweet revenge for Atlanta President Davis had so confidently promised them. But there was still the promise of the morrow. There were now but two miles of front to hold, when yesterday there were seven. There never was a time when Hood did not fight. All that night came the telegraphic torrent of compli- ment and congratulation. Abuse, censure, complaint, sus- picion, had given place to enthusiastic praise, and for all that Freeman and his fellows of the staff could see, the' one had just as much effect upon their quiet leader as had the other. Long after midnight he lay himself down for an hour's sleep. The issue of the coming day he could not doubt. It needed only cavalry to make it result in utter ruin to Hood. If only he had cavalry ! The morning came with Hood defiant, with bristling works and sullen guns aligned, and grim, hard, deadly work for the Union blue. No need to waste priceless lives in frontal assault as yet. Thomas had now preponderance in numbers, and could send Schofield still farther round the left to come sweep- ing in furious flank attack, and the morning wore away until Thomas again was ready. With the prey so surely within reach, yet fighting so desperately to the last, it were mercy to his men to spare them, The Rock of Chickamauga. 36$ But they would not be spared. Long before Schofield could begin his looked-for attack the brigades at the left had seen a possible chance and their leaders had sent them in. Over to the right "Bonnie Scot" McArthur, with his division of enthusiasts, had swung at a line of batteries in his front, while Garrard and McMillen drove in as supports, and just how it happened no Southerner could say; in spite of all their volleying, they found themselves between lapping lines in blue, and right there, no less than three generals and nearly thirty guns, with a whole division of infantry, fell into welcoming and not unkindly hands. It ripped the very center from Hood's defense. It opened a gap that could not be closed. It sent a storm of cheers through the Union lines, and stirred them all to emulation. Up and at them, right, left, and everywhere, rose the ranks in blue, and when at last the crash of Schofield's volleys was heard afar to the southwest, the storm of shot and shell that swept the Southern works was such that mortal man could not withstand it. Here, there, and everywhere, by squads and scores, the defenders went drifting away, or by com- panies and battalions lay down their arms and drooped their flags. By battalions and brigades, the Union lines came leaping on ; nine more guns taken at the left, eight more at the right. There was no help for it. Hood turned at last with breaking heart such of his men as could find their feet, or a mount of any kind, were already in flight back to Franklin and at sundown the battle of Nashville, with the Southern army of invasion, was a thing of the past. In all the war, from start to finish, 366 The Rock of Chickamauga. there was not another that resulted in the titter demoli- tion of the opposing force, with the possible exception of that much minor affair of our early pages, Mill Springs, on the same historic stream, fought and won, as luck would have it, by the same indomitable leader and com- mander, George H. Thomas. All over the North it set the joy bells ringing and the cannon booming in exultant salute. All over the South it tolled the knell of hope. The last Christmas of the Confederacy dawned in despond and gloom. Hood's army was in ruins; Sherman was in Savannah. CHAPTER XXXII. "Old Faithful," most capable of staff-officers and loyal and devoted of friends, sat in his office-tent a fortnight later, summing up the spoils, communing with himself and a select few of "Old Safety's" soldier family. "As a result of this experiment of Hood's," said he, "it has cost the South eighteen generals, sixty-eight guns, ten thou- sand small arms, thirty-odd battle-flags, and fifteen thou- sand men, which strikes me as a pretty poor showing for that side, and fairly good work on ours for a general who could only fight on the defensive. I wonder when our aggressive fighters, anywhere, are going to show any- thing to match it?" "If only Rolfe could have been with us!" moaned Freeman, who, even in all the triumph of those wondrous Christmas holidays, seemed never content outside of a fight. He had been a veritable whirlwind of action and energy through the two days of battle. He had had the consummate good luck to be with McArthur's di- vision in its brilliant charge. He had had a horse killed under him, but was up and away on his orderly's mount within another minute, and had come out of the cam- paign without another scratch, heartily commended by his big-hearted general, and congratulated in fond mis- sives from home. Yet within the week he was solemn and preoccupied again, and all the staff could see it. "If only Rolfe could have been with us," indeed! There 368 The Rock of Chickamauga. was no man, eve* in that exuberant march to the sea, that would not have been glad to share the honors of Nash- ville. But "The Children of Israel" were far on the way to Savannah, Ruddy heading the brigade, and not until their colors were planted in the Carolinas did they get the full particulars, and then what cheers went up among these veterans of the old Army of the Cumberland ! All their faith in their loved commander had been justified time and again, but now now he had eclipsed all pre- vious records ; now he had fought and won an aggressive battle that utterly wrecked the opposing army, something not yet recorded of superiors who would have it that "Thomas has no go in him." And the more it was studied the bigger it grew. Con- gress woke up wonderfully, and, in ringing words, passed its vote of thanks by name to the victor for "skill and dauntless courage." The legislature of Tennessee rivaled that of the nation in its praise, and the great, patient President rewarded with the commission of major-general in the regular army, dating from Decem- ber 1 5th, the great, patient soldier who had won such signal victory not alone over a valiant army in the field, but a virulent army of critics and of the press at home. With what curious sensation must the war secretary have countersigned that commission! With what sin- gular emotion did old Cutler, far in other fields, read of that significant reward, and listen to the rejoicings of the innumerable soldier adherents of the silent, undemon- strative commander his former regimental associate ! Possibly if Cutler had known of the incidental dam- The Rock of Chickamauga. 369 ages that resulted from Nashville he might have felt less confidence in his professional prospects that he was heard to express soon after Sherman's thrilling despatch, an- nouncing the capture of Savannah, a Christmas gift to the nation. All manner of men and material of war had fallen into the hands of the pursuers as Hood lied south- ward. Perhaps the oddest "outfit" was a broken-down butcher wagon that had once done domestic duty in the streets of Nashville. Unfeeling soldiery of "the States in rebellion" had cut the traces and confiscated the horses, leaving the civilian owner blaspheming by the roadside back of Overton Hill, surrounded by certain of the Con- federate dead and wounded, and so suddenly and sum- marily pounced upon by Wood's rejoiceful ranks he hadn't had time to invent a plausible tale. The first one he told was so preposterous that a crippled Confederate officer left behind in the rush promptly denounced him as an infernal liar, and a deserter from the Union lines. This led to their both being overhauled by the provost marshal of the Fourth Corps also the wagon, the con- tents of which proved of such importance and interest that a day or two later, in spite of vehement protest, the claimant and the contents both were unloaded before the tent of General Thomas. And then there was a scene. "This fellow claims to be in the secret service, gen- eral," announced the responsible officer, "and swears he has been acting under the orders of Colonel Cutler, who has no connection with this army. Major Lafitte, of the Confederate Army, who was captured wounded close 370 The Rock of Chickamauga. beside him, swears he has been with them ever since Atlanta that he knew him before, when a prisoner at Murfreesboro, and that the man acted often as a guide for General Hood." And all the time Thomas, of the silver-blue eyes, was silently, intently studying the slouch- ing form and hanging head. Then all of a sudden, in tones no man of the staff had heard from his lips since the melee at Chickamauga, Thomas suddenly spoke : "Hold up your head, sir, and look at me!" Dismally the order was obeyed, and one glance was enough. "O'Reilly, as I might have known," was the quiet comment. "Let Captain Freeman examine his plun- der. See to it that this scoundrel doesn't escape." And those who remembered Thomas's order against pillage and looting, his stern and summary methods with the few men who disobeyed, his wrath when a chaplain was caught in the act at Marietta, his almost furious re- buke of his own orderly who had merely captured a goose on the fly, could readily fancy the fate in reserve for O'Reilly, whose boxes were crammed with the spoil of a dozen homesteads. O'Reilly knew it himself, and collapsed. One of the first things Freeman came across was the pocket memorandum-book, ravished from his overcoat the day after the flood. There could be little doubt, then, that "Old Pop Eyes" had kept the letters. They, at least, were not here. But there came a letter as they lay at Nashville, later in the winter, that bowed Freeman's head and filled his soul with humility. Only at infrequent intervals had he written to Kate Claiborne since his return to duty The Rock of Chickamauga. 371 for the Atlanta campaign. Only infrequently had he heard from her. The Mississippi was open. Mail com- munication with New Orleans was almost uninterrupted. She had been most lovingly sheltered and welcomed by her mother's kinfolk, the Millaudons. She had been nursed back to health and strength, and was finding abundant occupation, caring for the many wounded of both armies, after the ill-starred Red River campaign. She had been since the summer of '63 with the family of her uncle, Philippe, father of the valiant little Pierre, and when she wrote it was all of the Millaudons their loving kindness to her and their appreciation of his (Freeman's) magnanimity toward their young hotspur, rather than of the romance that might readily be sup- posed to lie nearest to her heart. Sweet, sensitive, gentle were these letters, but Freeman noted, with something almost akin to pique, or wounded vanity, the absence of sentiment. There was not even implied reproach when once he allowed seven weeks to pass without sending her a line. On his part, he had felt bound, when he wrote, to write affectionately, to refer frequently to his hope, as soon as the war should be ended, of coming to New Or- leans to claim the fulfilment of her promise. Yet what promise had she made? She loved him, he well be- lieved that, for in her utter desolation and distress she had not had strength to conceal or deny it, and he had told her that he loved her, had told her then and there- after, and tried to believe it was so. If it had not been for the earlier passion for that wilful, capricious, and fascinating Kentucky girl, he knew it might well have 372 The Rock of Chickamauga. been so. He believed that in spite of that passion, when once again he could be thrown under the spell of Kate Claiborne's presence, it could be so; and whether or no, he meant, God helping him, to go to her as soon as came the end of which Nashville was the beginning, and claim her for his wife. He never expected to see Frances Morgan again. She doubtless would not care to see him. "Jt was all a mistake," as she had frankly said. But after Nashville there was such a lull in matters military in the middle West that many an officer was given leave of absence, and some went down the Mis- sissippi to see that gay old French-Spanish capital. New Orleans was still thronged with Union troops, and be- ginning to thrive in spite of itself. If others could go, why not Ned Freeman? Yet he did not seek it. He told himself that now his general needed him more than ever, for Thomas, roused at last by the lame and halting explanations of previous slights and neglects, was insisting on categorical statements as to the allegations or insinuations lodged against him. The resulting corres- pondence was voluminous, and Freeman had been put in charge, with their most trusted headquarters clerk as confidential and private secretary. "Old Faithful" was taking keen interest in the unraveling of this tangled skein. "Old Faithful" was heard to say he wouldn't stand in Cutler's shoes for a million a minute if com- pelled to confront Thomas. No, there was good reason why Captain Ned should not quit his post, but was this apparent to Kate Claiborne, when such gallants as Ful- The Rock of Cmckamauga. 373 mer and Wilton one day appeared before her beautiful and startled eyes? They knew her instantly in her deep mourning, yet were not prepared to see so beautiful a girl as she had grown. They met her at the entrance to the great Green- ville Hospital, whither they had driven to visit wounded comrades met her under the grand live-oaks of one of the old Millaudon estates met her walking, arm in arm, with a slender little Creole in Confederate uniform, one sleeve of which was empty, her cousin, P'tit Pierre, paroled and permanently crippled. They overwhelmed her, yes, and him, with cordial greetings, which she sweetly, and he, poor fellow, but stagily and sourly, ac- knowledged. Pierre could not so soon forgive, even when he could no longer fight. In an endeavor to escape from a Northern prison he had been shot and winged; his sword-arm was the sacrifice. "That girl's an angel, Ned," said Fulmer, when he got back to duty, "and she's just a lot too good for you." Freeman heard their tales in silence and wrote in self- reproach. It was March now, and, while Sherman was sweeping northward through the Carolinas, there came whisperings of "something doing" about Petersburg just so soon as Sheridan with his troopers should arrive ; even now his scouts were scampering down the tow-path of the James River canal. Freeman wrote to say with what eagerness he should be coming the moment the general could spare him, and just after the grand news came of Lee's surrender at Appomattox there reached our aide- de-camp these lines : 374 The Rock of Chickamauga. MON AMI: You have tried hard; you have done your best to make me believe that I hold the first place in your heart. You have been tender and gentle, and, oh, so good to me and to mine. You have been brave and honorable, and I honor you for it, but, Edgar, you have failed. I own that I tried to believe I wanted to believe. In the desolation that came with father's death it was sweet to believe; but, with the gradual return to health mine eyes have been opened, and, better than you know your- self, I see and know you. Come to us when you will, for there are Millaudons who long to meet you and to bless you; but come with no dread whatever. You are free, and I am, Your friend, now and always, KATHERINE MARIE CLAIBORNE. "Free !" Why should he wish to be free ? The gen- eral looked up from the papers on his desk, and the blue eyes twinkled and a smile played about the bearded lips, for he, too, had been hearing news and getting letters that were not all of war and warriors. "A two weeks' leave? A two months, if need be; and as soon as you like, my boy." But there was still much demanding Freeman's pres- ence at Nashville. The trial of O'Reilly before a mili- tary commission had been dragging its weary length. His counsel had demanded that Colonel Cutler appear, and the colonel, having reported at Washington in com- pliance with his orders, was showing not unnatural re- luctance to "coming into court." Indeed, an officer of rank had come all the way from the war department to "talk with Thomas." No less a personage than the sec- retary of war was interesting himself in the matter. It was understood that the mission of this ambassador ex- The Rock of Chickamauga. 375 traordinary was to plead with Thomas in behalf of Cut- ler, who, the secretary was free to admit, even while ren- dering most valuable and important services, had "made mistakes." It would be so much better all round, urged this diplomatic emissary, if now that peace was at hand, we might drop all these unhappy little differences grow- ing out of the bitterness of the war. Just as it was ad- mitted that General Thomas had been misjudged most abominably misjudged so General Thomas would admit it was possible he might now misjudge the motives that had actuated Colonel Cutler. (Thomas's face must have been a study as he heard that proposition.) In fine, might it not be better, in the interests of harmony, if this whole business were dropped? What whole business? "Why, er this O'Reilly matter." Perhaps it was in this way the matter leaked out. The general, somber and unresponsive, as well he might be, summoned the judge-advocate of his staff, and those who knew old Hunter Brooke could fancy his response to the query as to whether the O'Reilly case could be dropped. "A double deserter ! A spy ! A common thief a pillager! looter! robber! incendiary! all-round scoun- drel !" The officer of distinction went back to Washington and Cutler came. He did not report at headquarters. Captain Willard, meeting him by order, as he stepped from the train, in- formed him that it would be unnecessary. Yet it was ordained that they should meet, the malevolent slanderer 376 The Rock of Chickamauga. and the magnificent soldier he had striven to undermine. "Old Faithful" had not misjudged. At the south portico of the capitol, overlooking the field of his greatest victory, Thomas came face to face with his craftiest foe. Cutler went livid at the instant, yet, there being many present, strove to carry it through, and extended a bony, shaking hand. Thomas looked him squarely in the face, his blue eyes ablaze, looked him up and down, from head to foot, and up again from foot to head, slowly, deliberately, crushingly, then turned his broad back upon him in the sight of all. "To be hanged by the neck until dead," was the word- ing of the first recorded sentence in O'Reilly's case, though the extreme penalty of the law was later amended, more than one officer being heard to say there was little satisfaction in stringing the menial, when they could not even smite the master. Cutler's testimony had in no wise helped the poor devil, and, in spite of active dodging, had vastly harmed himself. The beginning of the breach between the great war secretary and the new President, the successor of the martyred and all-merciful, was said to be on this very case. Stanton had to rescue his staff- officer, for Johnson would have abased him. And in all the tremendous happenings, following the tragedy that appalled a world and threw a nation into mourning, it was not to be expected that Freeman could go philandering southward. He wrote repudiation of his freedom. He went northward with his general to do homage at the bier of the beloved Lincoln. He accom- panied him on his brief visit to the Point, mother and The Rock of Chickamauga. 377 sister Elsie, mind you, being of that very joyous party, also Ruddy Rolfe, fresh and vigorous after his stirring campaign through the Carolinas, and stunning in his silver stars and yellow sash. He, Freeman, was even re- quired by martial etiquette, to be presented in form to the war secretary, and to take his hand, which he did, turn- ing very red and stammering, "Good morning, sir," and thinking all the time of that first that other meeting which Stanton possibly remembered, but appeared to have totally forgotten. Freeman even stopped with his chief in Louisville on the return, and there, as he might have expected, and possibly did there again met and spoke with Frances Morgan. How very much better they were looking, the elders, now that the war was over ! now that Donald was safe ! The good old colonel seemed ten years younger as he and his beaming, blissful wife stood clasping Thomas's hands. When last Freeman had seen them their heads were bowed with care and dis- tress. How very much lovelier Miss Fan was looking, now that the war was over, and Donald safe ! Her beau- tiful eyes were dancing as Freeman never had seen them dance before. Her pretty face was radiant with health and happiness. Good Lord, what an ass he was ever to have thought she cared for him ! She did not even cherish the memory of his grievous affront. She seemed totally to ignore it. She greeted him now with a manner gay and blithe, even playful, as though they were the best and jolliest of friends; whereas he would have moped and moaned, and he took it very much amiss that she had so utterly forgotten his devotion. She came through the 378 The Rock of Chickamauga. interview with flying colors and he with drooping plu- mage, and utter depression. He was so disconsolate he did not even ask her where Donald was Donald whom he had heard the colonel refer to as fast gaining strength and "in the very best of hands." Frances gave him a saucy "Au plaisir" at parting, and a toss of the pretty head. In July they called him North again, for Elsie's wed- ding, as you must have divined, and General Ruddy had a six months' leave in which to go beyond seas; and mother was to join them later on in Paris. She wanted first to see her boy "safe settled," for his fitful humor and forced gaiety told her of his mental unrest. Was it his prospects that worried him? No; he must soon, of course, be mustered out as captain and aide-de-camp of volunteers; but now, at last, he was to receive a com- mission in the regular service, low in rank, to be sure, but what mattered that ? The army would soon be reor- ganized; everybody said so, and he was to be aide-de- camp to his beloved general. What better could he wish ? And then the mother heart would have its way, and he bowed his head and told her told her of his plighted troth, of the words he would not break. There was no need to tell her of his love. She knew, yet knowing, bade him, with her blessing, go to Katherine Claiborne. And so one exquisite, starlit night in the late autumn, he found himself for the first time in the old French quarter and the Crescent City. He had heard from her but seldom. He had not set eyes on her since the part- ing before Chickamauga. He? few letters for months The Rock of Chickamauga. 379 past had been kind, friendly, even cordial. She would not accept his renunciation. She had gently but firmly told him she knew him, and herself, much better than in the mournful days at Murfreesboro. She would, always be his grateful friend, and he must think of her in no other way. But he would not he declared to himself a thousand times he would not wound the heart that had, unsought, opened itself to him. Tenderness and devotion, lifelong, should be its reward, and as mother had told him, he would be in position to surround her with every reasonable comfort, even though he had chosen the army for his career. He had given her no warning of his coming. In com- pany with two comrades of the old Cumberland, he had made the run from Memphis by boat, and had reached New Orleans late in the afternoon. They had dined with an officer of the First Infantry, at a quaint old restaurant near the French opera, a musical neighborhood, as he noted, for the sound of song and laughter came floating through the open casement, and the narrow street seemed alive with sauntering groups. Freeman was nervous and impatient, yet unable at once to leave his friends. They took their coffee and post-prandial cigar upon the open gallery overhanging the banquette, and found that quite a little crowd had gathered underneath the windows of a dwelling a few rods distant. Some one with a rich, melodious tenor voice was singing gloriously within, and the throng applauded rapturously when the song was finished. A rotund little gentleman came to the window in response, and bowed and smiled upon the people be- 380 The Rock of Chickamauga. low ; then, in answer to their cries, returned to the piano. A chord or two, with the touch of practised hands, and then once more the delightful voice rang out upon the balmy air. Freeman knew the song at once, the merry, mocking "Donna e mobile" from "Rigoletto." They waited, these warriors four, and listened en- raptured; as did the watchers on many another gallery; as did the hundreds in the street. How far away seemed the stress and carnage of the four long years of battle! How blithe and gay, and altogether un-American, these joyous and peaceful surroundings! Already, with its mercurial temperament the French quarter had lifted itself from the gloom and depression of that bitter period, and was taking heart and comfort again. Bidding his comrades adieu, Freeman strolled through the cheery groups below stairs, and made his way toward Rampart Street. He had studied the map and could not well go astfay in that rectangular section. He had tossed away his cigar, and, once clear of the block, strode rapidly along, whistling softly to himself the laughing refrain. He remembered, later, that to her very gateway he was haunted by the witchery of "Donna e mobile." There could be no mistaking the house. Every one knew the residence of Philippe Millaudon. There it stood in its bower of orange and magnolia, the soft light from within revealing the long, Venetian windows, the wide, encircling gallery. He fancied he heard voices and stopped to listen, for his heart had taken to beating un- accountably. A street-car trundled lazily past along the esplanade, its sleepy mule stumbling on beneath the The Rock of Chickamauga. 381 foliage, toward the distant lights of Canal Street. A patrol came marching by, the men chatting until sud- denly checked by their sergeant at sight of the uniform. They glanced curiously at the tall young officer at the Millaudons' gate. The gray had they often seen there, but never yet the blue. The tramp of their stout bootees, the tinkle of the mule- bell, died away in the distance. The murmurous sound of soft voices through the magnolias became again faintly audible, and still Freeman hesitated. Then somebody came strolling out from the same narrow street that had brought him to the broad thoroughfare the old Rue des Remparts and lo! he, too, was whistling "Donna e mobile." Freeman turned, unlatched the high, white- painted, wooden gate, and entering, marched manfully on the enemy's works. A broad flight of steps took him to the gallery level. A broad hallway stood invitingly open before him. A piano trilled under a light, crisp touch within, and cheery voices sounded in the parlor. Strange ! One voice, deep and manly, with a soft, Southern intona- tion, he found wonderfully familiar. And it was English, not French, they were speaking. A lamp, hanging in the hallway, threw its gleam over his handsome new shoul- der-straps and cap-wreath. He saw no bell-handle. A quaint, old-fashioned knocker hung on the massive open door. His hand stretched forth, then dropped. A manly footstep, a swishing, trailing skirt, sounded suddenly at his left. Two dim forms, tall, youthful, slender, came sauntering round the corner, close at hand, and then stopped short. Only one instant was there of silence, 382 The Rock of Chickarnauga. then forward sprang a girl, glad, radiant, welcoming a girl with shining eyes and soft-flushing cheeks, a girl all happiness and health and rejoicing. He felt his hand clasped, and thought his senses going, as the joyous words rang out upon the air : "Captain Freemanl Oh, how good to see you here! Come out, uncle; come out everybody!" And, with wonderment in his eyes, and stupefaction clogging his tongue, our soldier of the Union found himself seized and surrounded by swift-rallying forms from every outlet, some still in Confederate gray, some in civilian dress, some in the expansive skirts of the day and generation all in smiles smiles that changed to bubbling laughter, eyes that shone with welcome, even though some brimmed with tears. Then he was led, bewildered and dum- founded, into the brilliantly lighted parlor and pulled this way and that, and presented to Uncle Philippe, who rhapsodied in French, and found himself bowing dumbly to Aunt Marie, in far more becoming front than that she wore in Tennessee. And here was Surgeon-major Mil- laudon, erstwhile of Lebanon. Here were his old friends of The Oaks, Colonel Morgan and his beloved wife, whose fond eyes were overflowing. Here, tall and sol- dierly, despite the limp and a cane, a major of Confed- erate cavalry, whose face proclaimed him Donald Mor- gan ere ever the word was said. Here, clinging to the young major's arm on one side, a glorified Kate Clai- borne. Here, clinging to that young major's arm on the other, a bewilderingly merry and mischievous Frances Morgan. The Rock of Chickamauga. 383 "We told you at Louisville, you know," said mamma, "that Don was in the best of hands." Was it for this, wondered Freeman, as he trod home- ward upon air, was it for this that he had been warned and welcomed by the strains of "Donna e mobile" ? CHAPTER And yet how logical the sequence of events! Donald, after his convalescence and exchange, had so far yielded to Jiis father's wish as to secure a transfer to Louisiana. It kept him away from the possibility of hostilities about Tennessee and Kentucky. There he soon won recogni- tion, and a detail with General Dick Taylor. Seriously wounded during the Red River campaign, he was again captured and later sent to hospital at New Orleans. There he fell among friends on both sides, and of both sexes. Long months he lingered in care of the surgeons and the nurse. There was a time when his letters had to be written for him. There was a time, later, when Colonel and Mrs. Morgan found it necessary to visit him, and the fortnight they spent in those strange surround- ings was made memorable by the courtesy lavished on the Virginian by officers of rank and station in the Union Army, and by the hospitality of Philippe Millaudon. Katherine Claiborne, niece of so distinguished a citizen, and Kate Claiborne, formerly of the modest home on the west fork, were one and the same in fact, yet how very different! Colonel Morgan realized, what he had earlier begun to see, that his opposition to Donald's love had been blind and unjust that Donald would be fortunate, indeed, if he could win such a woman. When they went back to Kentucky it was with chastened, relieved, yet The Rock of Chickamauga. 385 sorrowing hearts sorrowing for their boy who loved so deeply and whose love, he said, was not returned. But that was long weeks before a certain great sur- render, following months and years of most scientific and stubborn resistance. There is this analogy between love and war persistence, with proximity, works wonders. The summer of '65 saw the homeward marching of the disbanding armies, but prisoners remained on both sides to be accounted for ; prisoners of love and war, and of the two the latter found speedier release. The streets of New Orleans were filled for a year with men in worn Con- federate gray. They wore their chosen color long after they had lost their cause. The streets of New Orleans were trodden by many a fellow in Union blue, come again in search of that which he had lost in the sunny South. But Donald Morgan, still wearing the gray, had never quit the scene. He had matured many years, said they who loved him ; had grown much older, wiser, much more earnest and thoughtful. He must win her, said the fond mother, to Frances, on their return, and was puzzled to find that Miss Frances was utterly averse to discussion of the sub- ject. She was even less responsive when her mother would speak of Miss Claiborne's charm of manner arid person. I should not wonder if Miss Claiborne had found sweet revenge in showing both Colonel and Mrs. Morgan how very attractive she could be. The humblest-minded maid that ever lived could hardly be expected to deny herself that luxury. That summer proved tempestuous in "the dark and 386 The Rock of Chickamauga. bloody ground" of Kentucky. Colonel Morgan, sixty years of age, had gone to Louisville after the close of a certain military trial at Nashville; had there sought out one Colonel Cutler, of the Union Army; had publicly challenged him to mortal combat, and, being denied a meeting on ground of "no sufficient cause," had done his best to furnish one by public pulling of the colonel's nose, an expedient nipped in the bud by the vigilance of "Old Faithful." Morgan was consumed with wrath and would have fought his man with any weapon the latter chose to name, but it was not to be. Ned Freeman, too, had planned to put such an affront on Cutler that fight or flight would be his only alternative, but Thomas got wind of the project; gravely taxed Freeman with the rumor, and said, "No more of this," which ended it, but not Freeman's desire to fight. Nowhere in that part of the world could one find just then a detractor of General Thomas, but, as luck would have it, Bostwick turned up. He had been one of the early "discards" of the army, as hereto related; and, his "War-is-a-failure" party having been whipped out, he was now seeking adventure and profit in the Southland. Bostwick thought it safe to try to bully Freeman, whose crippled arm would probably be guarantee against attack. It was not, however. Freeman listened one second, in- credulous, to Bostwick's insolence, then swung left with his blow, pivoting on the balls of both feet, and Ruddy read the newspaper account of that episode while honey- mooning in the Alps. "The war ended too soon for Ned," was his comment. "He hasn't had fight enough yet." The Rock of Chickamauga. 387 He was to get it, poor fellow, in more ways than one. His big-hearted general was feeling not a little disturbed in mind about him. He little knew how very sore was Freeman's heart, and how sensitive his spirit, two things that tell heavily on the temper. But, as has been said, persistence, with proximity, works wonders. To many a soldier in those days, just after the war, there was ordained long banishment from sight of a beloved face, but to Freeman fell the torment of almost daily looking and longing. Never, said those who knew her, had Frances Morgan seemed so bewitch- ingly gay, so exquisitely pretty, as during the two years of social queendom that were hers while headqaarters remained at Nashville, and her father's old friend in supreme command. To be truthful, one must admit that Mistress Fan flirted conspicuously, if not outrageously, with every dancing man who came her way, for dances were many, and every dance a measure treading on poor Ned Freeman's heart. Dancing was something forbid- den him. The old Murfreesboro wound still threatened at times, and that weakened artery had to be humored. Glum, gloomy, miserable, the tall voung fellow could only hover about the doorways, looking and longing, yet fol- lowing on from one scene of gaiety to another, her shadow ever. They all went down to New Orleans the early spring of '67 for the lovely wedding that "made Freeman's two inamoratas sisters-in-law," as Fulmer put it, and made Freeman furious, thereby, for an entire week. Sheridan, Thomas, and McCook, of the old Army of the Cumberland, were there to grace the occasion, and 388 The Rock of thickamauga. with soldier cordiality to greet Buckner, Beauregard, and Dick Taylor, of their late antagonists. It was the blithest affair that New Orleans had Known since the days before the giins of Farragut came thundering past the forts and frowning over the battle-field of Chalmette. "But Free- man's face," said his tormentor, "was enough to make one think it all a funeral." There was a charming series of receptions and cotillions at Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati, whereat Miss Morgan nearly danced her pretty feet off, and Freeman gnawed his mustache. It pleased her to be unspeakably merry with him tantaliz- ing, teasing, and winsome by turns. His utter devotion to her became the talk, as his misery, it must be owned, became the laugh of the beaux and belles of society. "My soul," said Fulmer, finally, "she'll worry that poor fellow gray-headed in another year of this." And indeed this was not hyperbole. But, though she would not yield to Freeman's suppli- cations, it was certain that Miss Fan succumbed to no one else, and suitors there were who might well have tempted any girl. Freeman should have read hope in this, but he found nothing but despond. At last one eve- ning, an old, familiar friend, a dear one, took it upon him- self to approach the imperious young beauty not so young how by nearly seven years as when first she fa^ci- nated our stripling soldier and thus did her grave-voiced senior say to her : "This is getting very serious, Paquita mla. Will you tell me what you mean to do with this unhappy aide of mine?" She looked up, brimful of mischief, first; but melting The Rock of phickarriaiiga. at the grave concern, if not reproach, in the silver-f)lue eyes. It was to our general she made her first confession : "Will you promise never to tell until I give you leave? Then, I mean to marry him, fcut he doesn't know it. He'd never guess I meant to all along." But there came a day when, long before her resolution would have given out, her love betrayed her. She had been riding with a devotee wjiose horsemanship was, as Fulmer said, "his longest suit," and Freeman, with male- diction at his new misery, had watched them canter away, and then had gone raging up the Cumberland, contem- plating flight or self-destruction. A very imp of mischief had possessed Fanny Morgan that afternoon. She }iad tormented Freeman into open revolt, a threat o resign from the staff, and to join his regiment on the Indian frontier. She had lured her latest adorer into open avowal and tumultuous reproaches. She had brought on an access of nerves, and temper, that told on her spirited mount, to the end that he, too, like Freeman, took the bit in his teeth and actually ran away. As luck and mercy would have it, their respective orbits of flight intersected on a bluff, and at a sharp turn, and Freeman saw her coming, swift, straight, and helpless to destruction. When they pulled him out, a minute later, from a tan- gle of plunging, kicking hoofs and equine insanity, she, safe, but terror-stricken, had flung herself upon him, with the low cry, "Are you hurt? is it bleeding? Lift him there, quick !" she orcjered, pointing to a bench, an4 then, down on her knees in the dust, with her own hands, white, nervous, but unerring, with her sweet face, set and 390 The Rock of Chickamauga. strong, she had twisted his handkerchief about the leg, turned her crop into a tourniquet, and there she gave clearly, collectedly her. rapid orders to the astonished few and her crest-fallen escort, now hovering about her. "By Jove! sir," ruefully said Captain Curbit at the club that night, "she must have been studying surgery with that very end in view." It was useless thereafter to deny the truth or Free- man. It was in this wise his long and wistful wooing came to its blissful close. Old Wharton, medical direc- tor of the department, had been her professor. He was there now to receive her patient as the carriage drove them home, and to order him in limbo, and reclining chair, for the rest of the week. But there was no need to detail a nurse. There had been a season when the nation seemed deter- mined to set Thomas on a pedestal above his fellows, to so shower him with reward of every conceivable kind as to rebuke those who so long had slighted him. But Thomas himself, ever most loyal to "others in authority," proved a stubborn barrier. In the new chief magistrate, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, Thomas had a most en- thusiastic admirer, one who was ready to listen to almost any scheme for Thomas's advancement, but it soon was found that the sturdy soldier would accept nothing be- yond that which came as the due and proper reward of his soldiership. To the surprise of a number of lavish and well-meaning fellow citizens, the gifts that began to The Rock of Chickamauga. 391 rain upon him went straightway back to the donors. Just as, with the coming of another year, he rebuked the move to name him as a candidate for the Presidency; just as he refused the brevet of lieutenant-general ; just as he would accept no address or testimonial that reflected in terms on the methods or motives of his superiors, so, too, he de- clined, civilly, but firmly, the tender of presents from the people at large. It was simply, he said, against his princi- ples. For two years, in fact, he kept himself almost in seclusion in the Southwest, until, as it is pretty sure to do, public clamor died away when there came nothing new to spur it. Nashville, the scene of his greatest battle, became for the time his soldier home and station. Here, with his staff and friends about him, he lived the while in serene content, busy with his duties, envying no man. It was not until the third year of the new administration that he begged to be relieved from service in the South. Those of us who saw the working of the reconstruction meas- ures then demanded, could well see why. Then came orders for the far Pacific, the command of that great, un- troubled division, the prospect of years of health, peace, and competence. Thither, gratefully and rejoicefully he turned his eyes. There, all too soon and suddenly, those unflinching eyes were closed forever. At the moment in his own career when Freeman felt that happiness was his at last, there came his first great sorrow. His benefactor, his beloved general, lay there before him, the leonine head pillowed, calm and reposeful, as on that night at Chickamauga, the noble features placid as though soothed 392 The Rock of Chickamauga. by touch of the Omnipotent hand, awaiting in soldier slumber the clarion call of the great and final reveille, secure in the consciousness of duty nobly done, serene in the faith that never wavered, asleep like weary child in the peace of God that passeth understanding. L'ENVOI. Storm and sunshine in alternation fell on Freeman's pathway in the years that came. He had made luckless choice of a profession, for never in all the history of the regular army was it so ignored by Congress, and hum- bled by the press, as in the quarter century that followed the war wherein it had done such valiant service. Men who joined it as lieutenants, in the flush of youth and hope, found themselves even thirty years thereafter lieu- tenants still, gray-haired and grandfathers. One after another every prospect of advancement was blocked. One after another almost every hope of reward was stilled. Cheered and blessed by the presence of his devoted wife, Freeman had sought duty with his regi- ment, after seeing his general laid away, and ere long came orders declaring him "unassigned," with the pros- pect of muster out, for Congress cut down, by nearly one- half, the infantry, the backbone of the army. His war record saved him and secured him transfer to the cavalry, entailing five years' exile and Apache fighting under the scorching suns of Arizona, another five years of almost incessant campaigning against the warriors of the north- ern plains and mountains campaigns in which many a gallant comrade of the war days fell before the bullet of Cheyenne or Sioux, campaigns in which men starved and froze, ate their horses to keep alive, lost fingers, toes, and ears, but learned to know and love one another as in 394 The Rock of Chickamauga. no other walk in life, and here it was that Freeman won his way. There were occasional winters wherein they dwelt in garrison, almost undisturbed; and about their fireside, with fond faces, and book and song and homelike cheer, there was many a month of sunshine and sweet- ness. There was sunshine, too, in many a summer in saddle in the glorious mountain ranges of Wyoming and Montana, where Freeman and Freeman's troop were famous. With each succeeding year he grew and broad- ened, a student of his profession, a scholar by nature, and a man whose friendship men sought and swore by, for, once won, it was as stanch and sure as the soul of the great leader he so loyally had served, so deeply loved, and now so sadly mourned. Of him, his one hero, he would sometimes talk to those he trusted, but only those, for even twenty years after the volleys flashed their part- ing salute over the grave of our general, Freeman's eyes would fill as he told of his magnanimity, his simplicity, his soldiership. Twenty years? Yes, thirty and more, even after other generals had come to know Freeman's ability and to seek his services, for, though bearing no higher rank, after a quarter century of soldiering, than that with which he rode to battle at Nashville, twice and more was he summoned to long tours of staff and similar duty. At last advancing years, and the hard knocks of so many a hard campaign, told on a frame at no time too robust, and half around the world he came to rejoin the loved ones of his little home circle, glad to seek retire- ment on the modest rank of major he had finally attained. One brilliant January morning, but a few years back, The Rock of Chickamauga. 395 an old-time comrade, casually in Washington, stood near the entrance to the White House, watching the brilliant pageant of our New-year's day -the procession of offi- cers from the war department on their way to salute the chief magistrate of the nation a babe in arms when Ruddy Rolfe stood accused in the eyes of his future wife of downright persecution of her beloved brother. The babe had grown to wondrous strength and power, the honored md the chosen of a mighty people. The brother had moved along in the sluggish current of army life, winner of many <* brevet, but of little more substantial. There came Ruddy now, general in all the name implied, one of the foremost among the array of gray-haired, florid-faced, brilliantly uniformed veterans at the head of column. More than two score they numbered, generals active and retired, resplendent in their epaulets and sashes. Then the plumed chapeaux gave way to gold- banded caps, in long columns of twos, for now came colonels, a double dozen, then lieutenant-colonels not a few, and then, how young looked the fresh, clean-shaven faces, with the keen, bright eyes, the glowing cheeks! How erect, trim, and martial were these blithe fellows, some of them almost boyish, none of their number gray ! And then what had we here? Following at the rear of the column of majors, inter- jected, as it were, between them and the rearward files of captains and lieutenants in their flat-topped caps, con- spicuous, incongruous, came four olcl-fashioned, brass- mounted helmets, their plumes, of faded red, yellow, or 396 The Rock pf Chickamauga. dingy white, fluttering in the gentle southerly breeze. Foremost of the four, topped with flaunting yellow, the color of the cavalry, "cinched," as said irreverent young- sters, by tarnished chin-strap, a grim, soldierly face, with prominent nose and iron-gray mustache, peered forth over the roofs of the preceding heads, and presently the absurd old, pincushioned, shoulder-knots hove in view; the looped helmet cords and tassels. On the manly breasts of those in his immediate front there gleamed an occasional cross of sharp-shooter, or insignia of some society of soldiers of the recent war with Spain, but on the breast of him, following, as ordered, humbly in their rear, there shone the beautiful ribbon and cross of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, the prized insignia of the Army of the Cumberland, and pointed star of the Order of Indian Wars, even the badge of service in the distant Philippines symbols of forty years of fight and hardship, of exile and privation, forty years, beginning with such a war as that that giants waged from '61, and all this, that the final recognition might be the privilege of trailing in the wake of the contemporaries of one's own children. A Gallic little, one-armed, M. C., "the gentleman from Louisiana," a joy in diplomatic circles and the Metropoli- tan Club, where grizzled Freeman, too, was so much at home, standing close at hand, tipped his beaver, with laughing, yet courtly grace at sight of our veteran. "Ohe! Mon brave!" he hailed, and Freeman's blue eyes twinkled whimsical response. "What dost thou then The Rock of Chickamauga. 397 in this gallery? Thou art of our party square for lunch at one." "Which," said a youthful aide, undreamed of when his father fought at Nashville, unborn even when his sire battled for his life long after on the Little Big Horn, "which was rough on old Freeman; now wasn't it?" THE END. NORMAN HOLT BY GENERAL CHARLES KING WHAT THE CRITICS SAY " A pretty love story, like a silver thread, winds through the story and orightens and lightens the dark scenes of battle. Norman Holt ' is like a sea breeze it has the Sweep and dash, and is clean and wholesome." Chicago Record-Herald. " Written in the author's most spirited manner, and his descrip- tion of the battle of Mission Ridge is singularly vivid and forceful." Philadelphia Press. "It is a strong story, worthy of dramatization; but one fears lest it fall into incompetent hands, and so loose the strong high lights, the deep background, the soft mezzotints which the author has so deftly interwoven." Indianapolis Journal. " It is a swift and thrilling story of action." San Francisco Call. " One meets in these pages real human beings. There is not in the whole book a dull chapter." Omaha Bee. "The story is among the best General King has produced.** New York Times. "The book is rich in romance, thrilling in situation, and so intense in its recital that the reader is literally hypnotized with interest from the very first lines. It is General King's strongest work." Afcw York Press. "None of his past novels, which won him his reputation as one of the notably vivid fiction writers of the country, is more dramatic in plot and stirring in action than Norman Holt.' " San Francisco Bulletin. Beautifully Bound h Cloth, Illustrated, $1.25 G. V. DILLINGHAM CO., PUBUBHERS What the Critics say of TONIO, SON OF THE SIERRAS By General Charles King "A tale of the Apache war, the scene being laid in the far Southwest. The story is one of rivalry in love between two young soldiers, and the lights and shades of character are so nicely drawn that the reader easily picks the winner long before the race is over. Running through it all, with real feeling and much pathos, is the story of the faithful, honorable highstrung Indian, Tonio. It gives a somewhat new view of the wild man of the prairies, and one is quite content to accept it from the hands of one so well qualified to depict it." Arkansas Democrat. "A fine, spirited narrative of events of unusual interest and of 'a phase of life with which the author is absolutely familiar, and it pos- sesses also the rarer quality of a keen and true analysis of character and, motive. It is unquestionably one of the best works of fiction of the season." The Nashville American. " The story is written in General King's characteristic style ; action is more rapid and there are fewer digressions than usual with him. The tale holds the interest continuously, the reader not knowing just how it all will end until he reaches the final chapter. " Boston Transcript. " The character of General King's stories is too well known to require explanation, and the pathetic history of Tonio is as rich in romance and as thrilling in incident as its many entertaining predecessors. The descriptions of army life in Arizona some years ago are especially interesting." Toledo Blade. "Is well constructed and moves along with a dash and fullness of incident that holds the reader's constant attention." Louisville Courier Journal. " ' Tonio ' is marked by the wealth of stirring incident, and the detail of frontier soldier life which testify in all General King's books to the author's vivid imagination and familiarity with military affairs. There are pages of stirring battle scenes." New York World. " There is lots of life to the book. It will make a pleasurable addi- tion to the summer luggage." The Cleveland Leader. " No one is more capable of writing an army story than General King, and this, his latest, is one of his best, holding the reader's attention to the end." The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer. 12mo, Cloth Bound, Color Illustrations, $1,50 G. W. DILUNGHAM CO., Publishers, New York M11982 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY SMITH BROS. Books, Kodaks Stationery. Pictures 3h nalrlan1 Pal