r
machinists; and out of the ranks they stepped, and rebuilt the engines,
and made the cars ready for the carpenters. When we wanted carpenters,
out of the same ranks of common soldiers they walked, and made the cars.
From the ranks came other men, who took the twisted rails, unwound them
from the stumps and unsnarled them from one another, as women unwind
yarn, and laid them down fit to carry our trains. And in forty days our
message went back to Grant that we had 'stopped and built the road,' and
that our engines were even then drawing supplies to his hungry army.
Such was the incomparable army which was commanded by that silent genius
of war; and to have been one of such an army is to have lived!"

The withered old hand trembled, as the great past surged back through
his mind. We all sat in silence; and I looked at Captain Tolliver,
doubtful as to how he would take the old Union general's speech. What
the Captain's history had been none of us knew, except that he was a
Southerner. When the general ceased, Tolliver was sitting still, with no
indication of being conscious of anything special in the conversation,
except that a red spot burned in each dark cheek. As the necessity for
speech grew with the lengthening silence, he rose and faced General
Lattimore.

"Suh," said he, "puhmit a man who was with the victohs of Manasses; who
chahged with mo' sand than sense at Franklin; and who cried like a child
aftah Nashville, and isn't ashamed of it, by gad! to offah his hand, and
to say that he agrees with you, suh, in youah tribute to the soldiers of
the wah, and honahs you, suh, as a fohmah foe, and a worthy one, and he
hopes, a future friend!"

Somehow, the Captain's swelling phrases, his sonorous allusions to
himself in the third person, had for the moment ceased to be ridiculous.
The environment fitted the expression. The general grasped his hand and
shook it. Then Ballard claimed the right, as one of the survivors of
Franklin, to a share in the reunion, and they at once removed the strain
which had fallen upon us with the General's first speech, by relating
stories and fraternizing soldierwise, until Conductor Corcoran called in
at the door, "Mystery Number One! All out for the christening!"

As we gathered on the platform, we saw that the signboard on the
station-building, for the name of the town, had been put up, but was
veiled by a banner draped over it. Tents were pitched near, in which
people lived waiting fo