r that I was shoeless, along with the greater part of my
command, though the weather was bitter cold, and my feet were bleeding,
and yet when I heard that trumpet voice, ordering us from the wagons to
make one more stand, I never thought of my feet. Nor was there a
shirker among the men--and all because the leader was Forrest. Nothing
but death would have prevented us from responding to his summons. And
we saved that defeated army from annihilation, holding the enemy at bay
and driving him back, when, if he had known the true condition of
affairs, he would have ridden over us roughshod. There were times when
we were upon the point of giving way and fleeing before the numbers
that were hurled against us. But always the imposing figure of Forrest
appeared at the weak point, and then it would be the enemy would give
way.

* * * * *

At this point, with only a few more words, my story would have been
ended, but the young lady to whom it was first told would not permit it
to end there. Her Boston education had not eliminated her curiosity.
She sat looking at her mother with an indescribable expression on her
face. I knew not whether she was on the point of laughing or crying,
and I think that for a moment the mother was as doubtful as I. She did
neither the one nor the other, but went to her mother's chair and
kneeled on the floor beside her.

"Hasn't Dad left something out?"

"Why, I think not," replied the mother. "Indeed, I think he has told
too much."

"Oh, no, not too much," replied the young woman. "I know he has left
out something, and I think it is the most important part."

"What I have not told," I remarked, "has been strongly intimated. It is
best to leave some things to the imagination."

"I think not," replied the young woman, with decision. "You haven't
told anything about what happened after the war."

"That's true," commented the mother, with something like a blush; "but
I think that is almost too personal."

"No, no," the girl insisted with a smile; "you know how the public take
such things. If Dad writes his story and has it put in a book the
readers will think it is pure fiction."

"But if it were fiction," said I, "it would be a bad thing for all of
us."

Fiction or not, I was compelled to tell the story until there was no
more story to tell.

In the middle of April, one year after the surrender, I made all my
preparations to return to Murfreesborou