d a right pretty spectacle it would have been to one
whom it did not concern. It concerned us rather keenly.

As a member of Colonel Post's staff, I was naturally favored with a good
view of the performance. We formed in line of battle at a distance of
perhaps a half-mile from the bridge-head, but that unending column of gray
and steel gave us no more attention than if we had been a crowd of
farmer-folk. Why should it? It had only to face to the left to be itself a
line of battle. Meantime it had more urgent business on hand than brushing
away a small brigade whose only offense was curiosity; it was making for
Spring Hill with all its legs and wheels. Hour after hour we watched that
unceasing flow of infantry and artillery toward the rear of our army. It
was an unnerving spectacle, yet we never for a moment doubted that, acting
on the intelligence supplied by our succession of couriers, our entire
force was moving rapidly to the point of contact. The battle of Spring
Hill was obviously decreed. Obviously, too, our brigade of observation
would be among the last to have a hand in it. The thought annoyed us, made
us restless and resentful. Our mounted men rode forward and back behind
the line, nervous and distressed; the men in the ranks sought relief in
frequent changes of posture, in shifting their weight from one leg to the
other, in needless inspection of their weapons and in that unfailing
resource of the discontented soldier, audible damning of those in the
saddles of authority. But never for more than a moment at a time did any
one remove his eyes from that fascinating and portentous pageant.

Toward evening we were recalled, to learn that of our five divisions of
infantry, with their batteries, numbering twenty-three thousand men, only
one--Stanley's, four thousand weak--had been sent to Spring Hill to meet
that formidable movement of Hood's three veteran corps! Why Stanley was
not immediately effaced is still a matter of controversy. Hood, who was
early on the ground, declared that he gave the needful orders and tried
vainly to enforce them; Cheatham, in command of his leading corps, that he
did not. Doubtless the dispute is still being carried on between these
chieftains from their beds of asphodel and moly in Elysium. So much is
certain: Stanley drove away Forrest and successfully held the junction of
the roads against Cleburne's division, the only infantry that attacked
him.

That night the entire Confederate