ps along
the parapets."

Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the ramparts of Mount St.
Jean?

The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle had set it before
its time. God had ordained otherwise; but man, in his fury had shut
out the light of heaven against the decree of God, just as, equally
against His decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many a
brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset. Again and
again and again, from four till midnight--eight butchering hours--the
heart of the South was hurled against those bastions of steel and
flame, only to be pierced with ball and bayonet.

And for every heart that was pierced there broke a dozen more in the
shade of the southern palmetto, or in the shadow of the northern
pine. After nineteen hundred years of light and learning, what a
scientific nation of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we
Christians are!

It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry leader,
Forrest, asserted itself. With nearly ten thousand of his intrepid
cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who carried rifles and shot as they
charged, and whom with wonderful genius their leader had trained to
dismount at a moment's notice and fight as infantry--he lay on the
extreme right between the river and the railroad. In a moment he saw
his opportunity, and rode furiously to Hood's headquarters. He found
the General sitting on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side,
half way down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently watching
the progress of the battle.

"Let me go at 'em, General," shouted Forrest in his bluff way, "and
I'll flank the federal army out of its position in fifteen minutes."

"No! Sir," shouted back Hood. "Charge them out! charge them out!"

Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust. Years
afterwards, Colonel John McGavock, whose fine plantation lay within
the federal lines and who had ample opportunity for observation, says
that when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry
deployed across the river as if opening the way for the confederate
infantry to attack the federal army in flank and rear, hasty
preparations were made by the federal army for retreat. And thus was
Forrest's military wisdom corroborated. "Let me flank them out," was
military genius. "No, charge them out," was dare-devil blundering!

The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The flash from the guns
could now plainly be seen as night descende