d at him steadily a moment in silence and spoke in hard cold
tones.

"Get me out of New Orleans inside the Confederate lines--anywhere--a
guerilla camp--a swamp--anywhere, you understand. I'll find my way to
Richmond--"

He pressed her hand in silence and then softly answered:

"I understand, dear--and I'll arrange it for you. I'll hire a schooner
to set you across Lake Pontchartrain."

The old Colonel looked on the face of his dead wife and went to bed. He
made no complaints. He asked no questions. The book of life was closed.
Within a week he died as peacefully as a child.

Ten days later Jennie had passed the Federal lines and was whirling
through the Carolinas, her soul aflame with a new deathless courage.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE IRREPARABLE LOSS

Jefferson Davis not only refused to remove Albert Sidney Johnston from
his command in answer to the clamor of his critics, he wrote his general
letters expressing such unbounded confidence in his genius that he
inspired him to begin the most brilliant campaign on which the South had
yet entered.

Grant, flushed with victory, had encamped his army along the banks of
the Tennessee, then at flood and easily navigable for gunboats and
transports. The bulldog fighter of Fort Donelson had allowed his maxim
of war to lead him into a situation which the eye of Johnston was quick
to see.

Grant's famous motto was:

"Never be over anxious about what your enemy is going to do to you; make
him anxious about what you are going to do to him."

In accordance with this principle the Union General was busy preparing
his Grand Army for a triumphant march into the far South. He was
drilling and training his men for their attack on the Confederates at
Corinth. His army was not in a position for defense. It was, in fact,
strung out into a long line of camps for military instruction, preparing
to advance on the foe he had grown to despise.

Sherman's division occupied a position near Shiloh Church. A half mile
further was B. M. Prentiss with newly arrived regiments, one of which
still had no ammunition. Near the river McClernand was camped behind
Sherman and Hurlbert still farther back. Near them lay W. H. L.
Wallace's division, and at Crump's Landing, Lew Wallace was stationed
with six thousand men.

Grant himself was nine miles down the river at Savannah, a point at
which he expected to form a junction with Buell's army approaching from
the east.

Grant sat at breakfas