er that I
might go to the bottom, I swam across. Creeping up the bank and holding my
course still northward through a dense undergrowth, I suddenly reeled into
a dusty highway and saw a more heavenly vision than ever the eyes of a
dying saint were blessed withal--two patriots in blue carrying a stolen
pig slung upon a pole!

Late that evening Colonel McConnell and his staff were chatting by a
camp-fire in front of his headquarters. They were in a pleasant humor:
some one had just finished a funny story about a man cut in two by a
cannon-shot. Suddenly something staggered in among them from the outer
darkness and fell into the fire. Somebody dragged it out by what seemed to
be a leg. They turned the animal on its back and examined it--they were no
cowards.

"What is it, Cobb?" said the chief, who had not taken the trouble to rise.

"I don't know, Colonel, but thank God it is dead!"

It was not.

WHAT OCCURRED AT FRANKLIN

For several days, in snow and rain, General Schofield's little army had
crouched in its hastily constructed defenses at Columbia, Tennessee. It
had retreated in hot haste from Pulaski, thirty miles to the south,
arriving just in time to foil Hood, who, marching from Florence, Alabama,
by another road, with a force of more than double our strength, had hoped
to intercept us. Had he succeeded, he would indubitably have bagged the
whole bunch of us. As it was, he simply took position in front of us and
gave us plenty of employment, but did not attack; he knew a trick worth
two of that.

Duck River was directly in our rear; I suppose both our flanks rested on
it. The town was between them. One night--that of November 27, 1864--we
pulled up stakes and crossed to the north bank to continue our retreat to
Nashville, where Thomas and safety lay--such safety as is known in war. It
was high time too, for before noon of the next day Forrest's cavalry
forded the river a few miles above us and began pushing back our own horse
toward Spring Hill, ten miles in our rear, on our only road. Why our
infantry was not immediately put in motion toward the threatened point, so
vital to our safety, General Schofield could have told better than I.
Howbeit, we lay there inactive all day.

The next morning--a bright and beautiful one--the brigade of Colonel P.
Sidney Post was thrown out, up the river four or five miles, to see what
it could see. What it saw was Hood's head-of-column coming over on a
pontoon bridge, an