rus Harding. He was a native of Massachusetts, a first-class
engineer, to whom the government had confided, during the war, the
direction of the railways, which were so important at that time. A
true Northerner, thin, bony, lean, about forty-five years of age; his
close-cut hair and his beard, of which he only kept a thick mustache,
were already getting gray. He had one-of those finely-developed heads
which appear made to be struck on a medal, piercing eyes, a serious
mouth, the physiognomy of a clever man of the military school. He was
one of those engineers who began by handling the hammer and pickaxe,
like generals who first act as common soldiers. Besides mental power, he
also possessed great manual dexterity. His muscles exhibited remarkable
proofs of tenacity. A man of action as well as a man of thought, all he
did was without effort to one of his vigorous and sanguine temperament.
Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he fulfilled in all
emergencies those three conditions which united ought to insure human
success--activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes, and powerful will.
He might have taken for his motto that of William of Orange in the 17th
century: "I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success."
Cyrus Harding was courage personified. He had been in all the battles of
that war. After having begun as a volunteer at Illinois, under Ulysses
Grant, he fought at Paducah, Belmont, Pittsburg Landing, at the siege of
Corinth, Port Gibson, Black River, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, on the
Potomac, everywhere and valiantly, a soldier worthy of the general who
said, "I never count my dead!" And hundreds of times Captain Harding had
almost been among those who were not counted by the terrible Grant; but
in these combats where he never spared himself, fortune favored him till
the moment when he was wounded and taken prisoner on the field of battle
near Richmond. At the same time and on the same day another important
personage fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than
Gideon Spilen, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been ordered
to follow the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern armies.

Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American
chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain
exact information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest
possible time. The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald,
are