whom had been fortunate enough to escape this time without injury,
discussed the battle. For a while they claimed that it was a victory,
but they finally agreed that it was a draw. The losses were enormous.
Each side had lost about one third of its force.

Rosecrans, raging like a wounded lion, talked of attacking again, but
the rains had been so heavy, the roads were so soft and deep in mud that
the cannon and the wagons could not be pushed forward.

Bragg retreated four days later from Murfreesborough, and Dick and his
comrades therefore claimed a victory, but as the winter was now shutting
down cold and hard, Rosecrans remained on the line of Murfreesborough
and Nashville.

The Winchester regiment was sent back to Nashville to recuperate and
seek recruits for its ranks. Dick and Warner and Pennington felt that
their army had done well in the west, but their hopes for the Union were
clouded by the news from the east. Lee and Jackson had triumphed again.
Burnside, in midwinter, had hurled the gallant Army of the Potomac in
vain against the heights of Fredericksburg, and twelve thousand men had
fallen for nothing.

"We need a man, a man in the east, even more than in the west," said
Warner.

"He'll come. I'm sure he'll come," said Dick.

Appendix: Transcription notes:

This ebook was transcribed from a volume of the 16th printing

Despite the fact that this is a fictional work, I myself find it
inappropriate that our fictional hero, Dick Mason, is credited with
discovering the "lost" copy of Lee's General Order No. 191. In fact,
Sergeant Bloss and Corporal Mitchell, of the 27th Indiana Infantry,
found the envelope containing the order, along with the three cigars, in
a field of clover on the morning of 09/13/1862.

The following modifications were applied while transcribing the printed
book to ebook:

Chapter 2
Page 31, para 4, add missing close-quotes
Page 51, para 3, add missing comma
Page 51, para 6, fix typo ("Pennigton")
Page 52, para 7, add missing open-quotes

Chapter 3
Page 68, para 4, changed "it" to "its"

Chapter 4
Page 83, para 3, added a missing comma (In these books, I am
often tempted to add/move/remove commas, but I generally avoid
doing so. In this case, an additional comma was sorely needed.)

Chapter 5
Page 105, para 3, add missing open-quotes
Page 107, para 2, add missing open-quotes
Page 118, para 5, changed "he know not" to "h