," replied the other.

"And how do you do with them?"

"Shoot them as _spies_. Why, only last week I got four dozen of them,
and in less than four minutes I had them all laid out stiff in the road."

The reader need not imagine that the general here romanced or
exaggerated. At that very moment the massacres and murders which were
going on within three miles of us were beyond belief. The bands of
_guerillas_ or bushwhackers which swept the country murdered in cold
blood all who fell into their hands, and the Confederate soldiers often
did the same. There resulted, of course, a deadly hatred on both sides,
and the most unscrupulous retaliation.

I could fill a book with the very interesting observations which I made
in Nashville. And here I call attention to a very strange coincidence
which this recalls. During the previous year I had often expressed a
great desire to be in some State during its transition from Confederacy
to Unionism, that I might witness the remarkable social and political
paradoxes and events which would result, and I had often specified
Tennessee as the one above all others which I should prefer to visit for
this purpose. And I had about as much idea that I should go to the moon
as there. But prayers are strangely granted at strange hours--_plus
impetravi quam fuissem ausus_--and I was placed in the very centre of the
wheel. This very remarkable fulfilment of a wish, and many like it,
though due to mere chance, naturally made an impression on me, for no
matter how strong our eyesight may be, or our sense of truth, we are all
dazed when coming out of darkness into light, and all the world is in
that condition now. No matter how completely we exchange the gloom of
supernaturalism for the sunlight of science, phantoms still seem to flit
before our eyes, and, what is more bewildering still, we do not as yet
know but what these phantoms may be physical facts. Perhaps the Voodoo
stone _may_ have the power to awaken the faith which may move the vital
or nervous force, which may act on hidden subtler forms of electricity
and matter, atoms and molecules. Ah! we have a great deal to learn!

Through General Whipple's kind aid the brothers Colton were at once
brought up from the front. With them and Captain Paxton we went to
Murfreesboro, and at once called on the general in command, whose name I
have forgotten. He struck me as a grim, brave old commander, every inch
a soldier. While we convers