did. Steedman has acted without orders in this way on more than one

important occasion. He fought the battle of Carnifex Ferry, Western Virginia, without either orders or assistance, and defeated Floyd's brigade with a single regiment. He was ordered to hold Chattanooga when Hood marched against Nashville; but, finding no very formidable force near him, and being cut off from communication with Thomas at Nashville, Steedman left a small force of negro troops in Chattanooga, and started with a large force of white and negro volunteers for Nashville. Hood's cavalry advance cut the railroad and precipitated his trains into Mill Creek, a small stream a few miles from Nashville, but he fought his way through on foot to the city, and appeared with his ten thousand men before General Thomas's head-quarters. To Thomas's look of inquiry, and perhaps of censure, Steedman replied,

"General, I was cut off from communication, and have come here in hopes I may get leave to re-enforce Nashville, and take a hand in the battle."

He got the order and the opportunity. In his report of his participation in the battle, he states that he made the movement by General Thomas's order, but does not explain how he obtained it.

Steedman had great faith in negro troops. One of his most daring efforts was that of leading a thousand negroes in a charge at Dalton, Georgia, upon Wheeler's cavalry, twenty-five hundred strong, defeating them, and capturing the place. His main force at the battle of Nashville was two brigades of negro troops, and their conduct was highly commended by him. He made much character and great personal popularity, while in command of the Department of Georgia, by his efforts in alleviating the condition of the freedmen. An incident illustrative of his policy with the freedmen, and his ideas of justice as applied to them, is told of him while stationed at Augusta, Georgia.

A railroad contractor came to him one day and asked for a military force to compel the negroes to work in repairing the line from Savannah to Augusta.

"They won't work, general," said the contractor.

"How much do you pay them?" asked the general.

"Ten dollars per month," was the answer.

"The devil!" exclaimed Steedman. "Give 'em thirty, and see whether they'll work then. I never gave a man less than eighty-seven and a half cents a day in my life. I think I could get a brigade at that price here. You try it; and, I say," he added, "if I hear of your offering less, I'll _try_ you."

The contractor tried the plan, and found he had no use for a military guard, and no work for half the applicants who swarmed about his office.

Steedman in appearance is like a hale, hearty farmer, with stout, burly form, largely made, and of great physical power and endurance. He weighs over two hundred pounds, and is one of the strongest men in the country. He is as frank as he is bold, and as honest as impudent.

When General Rosecrans retired to Chattanooga during the battle of Chickamauga, thus abandoning his army, he committed the grand mistake of his military career. He soon found this to be so, and soon felt and knew that his unfortunate retreat had left him utterly defenseless. He feared at first to condemn any one, and endeavored to make friends with all. He could not condemn McCook and Crittenden, for in running away from the battle-field they had only followed his example, and to condemn them for this was to condemn himself. Some victim was necessary as an explanation of his defeat and retreat, and Generals Thomas J. Wood and James S. Negley were selected, the latter before and Wood after the removal of Rosecrans. Negley was a volunteer officer, who had incurred the enmity of Brannin, Davis, Baldy Smith, and one or two regular officers of inferior rank, and he was sacrificed by Rosecrans in order to obtain the support of what was known as the "regular clique" of the army, and which embraced these and other regular officers. Wood was not relieved by Rosecrans as Negley was, nor did Rosecrans venture to publicly censure him until after his own removal, when, very much to every body's surprise, Rosecrans condemned Wood in his official report for having caused the disaster to the army. The fact is that Rosecrans was not entitled to make a report of the battle of Chickamauga, for he did not see it, was not present, and, as written, his report, after its description of the general topography of North Alabama and Georgia, is merely a lame apology for his own strange conduct.

The two men thus made the scapegoats of Rosecrans were men of more than ordinary abilities, and it is a great pity that the reputation of such men should ever be placed in the hands of such generals as Rosecrans. General Negley, though not educated for the army, was one of the best-read officers in military matters that we had in the volunteer service, and possessed a natural adaptation for, and many qualities as a leader. He was a man of quick perception and decided judgment, intuitive talents which "stood him in hand" on more than one occasion, as, for instance, at Stone River, where he replied to Breckenridge's assault of his troops by a counter-charge which, made with great force and rapidity, turned the fortunes of the day, and won an advantage which decided Bragg to abandon the field of which he was still master. Bragg relieved Breckenridge from his command for his defeat by Negley.

Among the most important services rendered by General Negley, or by any other general officer of the army, were the operations embracing the reconnoissance and battle at Dug Gap, Georgia, on September 11, 1863. He commanded the advance of the centre column of Rosecrans's army in crossing Lookout Mountain. The three columns had been widely separated--fifty miles intervening between the right wing and centre, and about thirty between the centre and left wing. Knowing this, Bragg had concentrated his forces in front of the centre, abandoning Chattanooga in such a way as to indicate he was in full retreat. Rosecrans ordered him to be pursued, and General Negley, debouching from Stevens's Gap of Lookout Mountain, was ordered to take Lafayette, Georgia. General Negley was advised and had reported that Bragg was concentrating his forces at that very point, but the report was discredited by General Rosecrans, and Negley was ordered forward. He advanced cautiously on the morning of September 11, in command of his own and Baird's divisions, and, as he anticipated, soon encountered the enemy. He drove them for some time, but soon found that he had Bragg's whole army in his front and on his flanks. It was subsequently discovered that Bragg had issued positive and peremptory orders to Generals Hindman, Hill, Buckner, and Polk, to attack and destroy Negley, promising himself the easy capture of the other columns in detail. But Negley was too shrewd to be caught thus; although his trains and those of Baird encumbered the road in his rear, which the enemy soon threatened by moving on his flanks, he succeeded in saving every wagon and in slowly retiring on Stevens's Gap, where he could afford to battle with thrice his numbers. This engagement, which lasted all the day, was the first convincing proof which Rosecrans had of the presence of Bragg, and the first premonition of danger. It induced him to gather his scattered columns together. General Negley's discretion and valor on this occasion were not only alike commended by Generals Rosecrans and Thomas, but by General Bragg, who, in his anger at their failure to destroy him, arrested Hindman and Polk, and preferred charges against them. These charges, which attributed Negley's escape from this danger to delay on the part of the rebel officers arrested, were never sustained, and they were returned to duty. The fact was that Negley had outwitted them, and had forewarned Rosecrans in time to save the army.

When the battle of Chickamauga began, General Negley's division was on the move, marching to the sound of the artillery, and it reached the field just in time to push forward on the right and fill up a gap created by the dispersion of General Van Cleve's division. In the desperate fight which ensued, the rebel General Preston Smith was killed, and the enemy driven in confusion. On the second day of the battle General Negley's division was not so fortunate. One brigade was sent to the extreme left, another was placed in the centre, and the third held in reserve. Later in the day the general himself was taken from the command of the division and ordered to the command of a number of batteries which were concentrated on a hill on a new line to which it was proposed to retire, and which were intended to cover the retrograde movement. Before this manœuvre could be executed, however, the right wing and centre of the army were broken, and the troops fell back in confusion. The enemy charged upon the guns of General Negley in great force, and, moving upon the flanks, greatly threatened their capture. By great exertions the general succeeded in carrying them from the field without the aid of any infantry supports, and thus saved about fifty guns from capture.

On retiring to Rossville, he found himself, in the absence of Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden at Chattanooga, the senior officer in that part of the field, and he immediately began the work of reorganizing the troops of the several divisions gathered indiscriminately there. He succeeded in reorganizing a large number of men, and, selecting a strong position at Rossville Gap, endeavored to open communication with General Thomas. This was found impracticable, however. During the night General Thomas retired to this position, and, forming a junction with General Negley, ordered him to post the forces along the line selected by him, and prepared to give the enemy a warm reception on the next morning. Bragg was too wise to attack, and contented himself with merely reconnoitering the position. On the succeeding day the troops were retired to Chattanooga, and preparations were made for the siege which followed. During this siege General Negley was relieved from duty by General Rosecrans in such a manner and so unjustly that he was induced to demand an examination into his official conduct. This was granted; a court of inquiry was convened and an investigation made, resulting in General Negley's acquittal. The official record of the court states in conclusion "that General Negley exhibited throughout the day (the second day of the battle) and the following night great activity and zeal in the discharge of his duties, and the court do not find in the evidence before them any ground for censure." General Negley, on the conclusion of the trial, was ordered to report to the Adjutant General at Washington, and did so, but soon after resigned. He is now engaged in the cultivation of his farm near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Negley is one of the most accomplished horticulturists in the country, and when in the field of war his leisure hours were devoted to the study of various fruits, flowers, and shrubs in which the Southern fields and woods abounded. Many a march, long, tedious, exhausting, has been rendered delightful to his staff by his interesting descriptive illustrations of the hidden beauties and virtues of fragrant flowers and repulsive weeds. I have known him to spend hours in explaining the properties of shrubs and wild-flowers which grew about his bivouac or head-quarters, and he would, when on the march, frequently spring from his saddle to pluck a sensitive plant, that he might "point a moral" in showing how soon it, like life or fame, withered at the touch of death or disgrace. He was a remarkably well-made man--something of the robust, sinewy frame of Steedman and Buell. His grasp was like a vice. He was as tough as he was strong, and as elastic as enduring. He was an exceedingly prompt and active man, and his division of the Army of the Cumberland was by far its best in drill, appointments, and in its commissariat. Negley's troops used to boast that while he commanded they had never, under any circumstances, wanted for food or clothing, and they used frequently to call him "Commissary General Negley."

General Thomas J. Wood might in some slight respects be compared to Negley, but they appear to better effect when drawn in contrast. Negley was considered a martinet among volunteers, Wood a martinet among regulars. I do not mean martinet in the sense which a few brainless officers have given the title by their illustrations of it, but in its proper sense, as indicating a thorough and efficient disciplinarian. Both Negley and Wood made their men soldiers through discipline, and there were no better soldiers in the army. Their fate, too, was similar. The advancement of each was slow and labored, and their friends began to fear that their promotion was to be of that ungenerous, posthumous order which was too frequent, and which always looked to me like giving a handsome tomb-stone to a man unjustly treated all his life.

General Wood was a captious officer, but a decided, brave, and energetic one. History, which is rapidly beginning to be just, and which will grow harsher every day, and more just with all her harshness, will say that it was highly proper that the appointment of General Wood as major general should read as it did--"vice Crittenden, resigned." The place which that clever gentleman, but very poor soldier, Thomas L. Crittenden, filled, was properly Tom Wood's years before he got it, for he really filled it. Always under the command of Crittenden, he was ever at his right hand and as his right hand, and furnished him with all the military brains, and formed for him all the military character he ever had. It may be impolite to say this now, but it is anticipating history but a short time. This is a decree which must be submitted to eventually, and why not now?

When the army of Rosecrans was drawing itself up in front of Murfreesborough, Tennessee, the very day before the battle of December 31, 1862, Crittenden's wing was on the left, and Tom Wood's division held its advance. On approaching the rebel position, Wood, of course, came to a halt, and, reconnoitering the position, reported to Crittenden that the enemy were intrenched in his immediate front. Crittenden went forward to Wood's position and satisfied himself of the presence of the enemy in force, and approved the halt. A short time after he received a communication from General Rosecrans stating that General David S. Stanley, who, with his cavalry corps, had gone to Murfreesborough, reported that the enemy had evacuated, and he therefore ordered Crittenden to cross Stone River and occupy the town. Crittenden showed the order to Wood, and told him that he must advance and occupy the town. Wood argued that Rosecrans's information, to his own and to Crittenden's knowledge, was incorrect, and that, of course, it would not do to implicitly obey the order. Crittenden thought that its terms were positive, and no course was left him but to obey it. Wood urged Crittenden to report the circumstances, announce to Rosecrans that the movement was delayed an hour in order to report those facts, and stand ready to obey it if then repeated. It was some time before Wood could make Crittenden understand that this was the proper proceeding under the circumstances. He rode back to Rosecrans and reported the facts, when that officer, examining for himself, approved of the course pursued, and taught Crittenden that positive orders were not always to be implicitly obeyed.

In three years of active warfare Tom Wood won honor from every action, from Shiloh to Nashville. The disasters of his corps were not disasters for him. He came out of the crucibles refined and sparkling with renewed glory. Whether proving, as he did at Shiloh, that he had made by his discipline veterans out of men who had never seen a battle--whether stemming the adverse current of battle at Chickamauga--whether scaling with irresistible power the heights of Mission Ridge, and carrying at the point of the bayonet the strongly-manned position, which looked strong enough to hold itself--whether repulsing the charge at Franklin, or making it at Nashville, he stands forth prominent as one of the coolest, self-possessed, and gallant spirits of the day. I was glad to see him at the close of the war joining hands with his noble friend Rousseau for the redemption of Kentucky from slavery, and uniting with that band of progressive spirits to whom she will in a few years acknowledge that she owes her prosperity and welfare.

Among the many original characters whom I met, and who had been developed by the war, and by no means the least remarkable of them, was Major General Oliver Otis Howard. In many respects he was not unlike General George H. Thomas, possessing the same quiet, dignified, and reserved demeanor, the same methodical turn of mind, and the same earnest, industrious habits; but Howard was Thomas with the addition of several peculiarities, not to say eccentricities. He had none of General Thomas's cold-bloodedness, and though, like him, a statue in dignity of demeanor, Howard, unlike Thomas, had blood in him that often flowed warm with sympathy, and pulses that sometimes beat quicker with excitement. General Thomas guided himself in his course through life by his immediate surroundings, adapting himself, without sycophancy, however, to present circumstances without regard to past consistency, and was in power and favor at all times, because content to obey as long as he remained a subordinate. Howard began life with certain aims in view, and sailed a straight course, remaining always constant to his principles, and consequently finding himself, like all men with either firm principles or advanced ideas, at times unpopular. He had little of General Thomas's practicability, and General Thomas had little of Howard's faith in the strength and final triumph of great principles. One trusted in the physical strength, the other in the innate power of the principles of a great cause. Thomas believed the late war the triumph of good soldiers over their inferiors--the triumph of numbers, skill, and strength; Howard will tell you, with a flush of feeling and a slight touch of the extravagance of an enthusiast, that it was the triumph of right over wrong. Thomas thinks, with Napoleon, that God sides with the force that has the most cannon; Howard believes, with Bryant, that "the eternal years of God" are truths; and with the Psalmist, that

"Great is truth, and mighty above all things."

The faith of Howard in the principles which he advocated was sublime. I knew of but one other who began the war with loftier purposes of universal good, purer motives of right, justice, and liberty, or truer ideas of the nature of the struggle as a crusade against slavery and ignorance, and he was not a general--only a major of infantry, though a brilliant "first section" graduate at West Point, but worthy ten times over of greater rank than the army could grant. Nothing could have been more beautiful than the firm faith which William H. Sidell felt from the first in the final triumph of the right, not merely in restoring the country to its former glory, unity, and strength, but in restoring and rejuvenating it, purified of that which was at once its weakness and its shame. It is somewhat of a digression to run off from Howard in this manner to speak of Major Sidell, but every reader who knew the man will think it pardonable. Sidell was a man of firm convictions, and hence a man of great influence. It used to seem to me that he was intended for the single purpose of making up other people's minds, and deciding for his acquaintances what was right and what wrong. He possessed a singularly effective, epigrammatical style of conversation, and his generally very original ideas were always expressed with great force and vigor. When he got hold of a great idea, he would talk it at you without cessation, repeating it as frequently as he found a hearer, and persist with something of the manner of those religious preachers who pride themselves on "preaching in season and out of season" until conviction followed. His ideas possessed not only value, but his language had a stamp as coinage has, and both ideas and language passed current. His ideas, oft repeated, thoroughly inculcated, found wide circulation in the army with which he served, and it was often amusing to hear his language repeated in places where they were least expected, and by persons who were never suspected of possessing minds capable of retaining grand ideas, or hearts true enough to comprehend great principles. His ideas were traceable in the language of the soldiers, relieved and often illustrated by the happy use of their familiar, commonplace "slang." They got strangely mixed up in the orders of commanding generals with whom he served, and I have even detected Sidell's undeniable stamp in one of the Executive documents.

The great charm of the man was the effective style in which he advocated the firm convictions of his mind, and expressed the deep sympathies of his nature; and no man could rise from a conversation on the topics to which his mind naturally reverted, whenever he found a willing listener, without feeling the better for it, and with a better opinion of humanity in general. If he had a fault, it was that he conceived too much. His was

"A vigorous, various, versatile mind,"

which grasped a subject as if to struggle with it, and pursued an idea "to the death." It was, however, only his convictions in regard to great principles that he inculcated and forced upon others. He originated so much that he executed too little, and never gave practical effect to two or three of his mechanical inventions which have made fortunes for more practical and more shallow men. Sidell was in some respects the only counterpart I ever met to Sherman, and the parallel between them only held good with regard to their head work. They conceived equally, but Sherman executed most.

General Howard possessed these same attributes of firm, honest conviction, and the same fixedness of principles which distinguished Sidell. His moral honesty won him more admiration than his speeches or his abilities as a soldier; for, though energetic and persevering in his administration as a commander, and generally successful in his military efforts, his reputation in the army was more that of the Christian gentleman than of the great soldier. It was through the constant observation of his Christian duties that he won the title of the "Havelock of the war" and the reputation of an exemplar. He was strictly temperate, never imbibing intoxicating drinks, never profane, and always religious. There was not a great excess of religion in the army, particularly among the general officers, and Howard therefore became a prominent example, the more particularly as religion was looked upon by a great majority of the men only to be ridiculed. There was very little of religious feeling among the men of the army, save among those in the hospital. The hospital was the church of the camp, and there was little religious fervor among our veterans which did not date from the hospital. The soldier in the hospital was another being from the soldier in camp. He abandoned his bad habits when he lost his health or received his wound, and grew serious as he grew sick. The lion of the camp was invariably the lamb of the hospital. The almost universal habit of swearing in camp was abandoned in the hospital; profanity gave place to prayer, and the sick veteran became meek, talked in soft tones, and never failed to thank you for the smallest kindnesses where before he had laughed at them. I have often seen the convalescents gather in the sunshine to sing familiar hymns, and generally the wildest in camp were the most earnest in these religious exercises.

When Howard took command of the Army of the Tennessee, an old officer remarked that there was at last one chaplain in it. That particular army had not paid much attention to religion, believing, like Sherman, that crackers and meat were more necessary; and at first the men displayed but little respect for the "intruder from the Potomac," as much, indeed, from the fact that he came from the Potomac army as that he was what the men called "nothing but a parson." A very short time after taking command of this army, Howard gave orders that the batteries of his command, then in position besieging Atlanta, should not fire on the enemy on the Sabbath, unless it became absolutely necessary. The enemy soon heard of this order, and generally busied themselves on the Sabbath in casemating their guns and otherwise strengthening their works in Howard's front, exposing themselves with impunity, satisfied that Howard's men would keep the Sabbath holy, though doing so under compulsion. The soldiers did not like this forced silence, declaring that "it wasn't Grant's nor Sherman's way, nor Black Jack's (Logan) neither;" and one of the general officers went so far as to say that "a man who neglected his duty because it happened to be Sunday was doubtless a Christian, but not much of a soldier." The troops soon learned, however, that Howard was also a soldier; and when, a year afterward, he was relieved of the command by General Logan, he had won the love and admiration of his men.

General Howard would have liked to have been thought the representative man of the Army of the Tennessee, but there were no points of resemblance between him and the real representative man of that army. The Western soldiers were of a peculiar race, and under Grant the Army of the Tennessee, the representative army of the West, was drilled, marched, and fought into a peculiar type of an army. Sherman took command of it subsequently, and gave it many peculiarities, not all of which were creditable; but neither Grant nor Sherman were its representatives. Howard endeavored to reform the army morally and in its discipline, which even under Grant had been bad, and under Sherman very lax indeed, but failed to impart to it as a body any of the qualities which shone so prominently in his character. The real representative man of that remarkable army was General John A. Logan, of Illinois.

"Black Jack Logan," as he was facetiously called by his soldiers, in consequence of his dark complexion, is the very opposite in appearance and manner of Howard. Logan is a man of Sheridan's short and stumpy style of figure. Sheridan used to be called by the card-playing soldiers the "Jack of Clubs," and Logan was known as the "Jack of Spades." Logan is, too, the same daring, enthusiastic, and vigorous fighter that Sheridan is. He will always be prominent among the Marshal Neys of the war for the Union, and belongs to that representative class of fighting generals of which Sheridan, Hancock, Rousseau, and Hooker are the most distinguished graduates. A man of great daring, and full of dash and vim, Logan was, like the others, great only as a leader, and made no pretensions to generalship. He had the habit of decision to perfection, and went at every thing apparently without previous thought. He is a man who, possessing all that vigor and boldness of heart which great physical strength and health gives, united with a naturally warm, enthusiastic, and daring temperament, engaged heart and soul in every task that allured or interested him, and never abandoned it as a failure. A man of action, he was untiring, and, did he more definitely lay out his plans in life, would win a front place among the great men of the age. Not that he is vacillating, nor yet indecisive, but simply because he is not thoughtful, far-seeing, and politic, but impulsive. He is, indeed, too passionate to ever be politic.

With little prudence in planning, Logan had the daring to act, and his decision was shown in frequent emergencies. During the battle of Hope Church, Georgia, the rebels made a sudden charge upon a battery posted in Logan's line, and, before being repulsed, had secured two of the guns, which they attempted to carry off with them. Logan was busy in another part of the field, but, seeing the rebels retiring unpursued with the trophies of their charge, he dashed up to one of the regiments which had repulsed them, and exclaiming to his men, "Bring back those guns, you d--d rascals," led them in a charge for their recovery. The men followed him without regard to formation, and overtook and defeated the rebels before they could reach their lines, and secured the captured artillery.

On another occasion, when new to the service, a portion of Logan's regiment mutinied, and, stacking arms, refused to do duty. The adjutant informed Colonel Logan of the difficulty, and he, on hearing it, exclaimed, "Stacked arms! the devil they have!" Then, pausing a second as he considered the emergency, he continued, "Well, adjutant, I'll give them enough of stacking arms!" Accordingly, he formed the remaining four companies in line with loaded muskets, and stood them over the malcontents, whom he compelled to stack and unstack arms for twelve hours.

Logan's readiness to act was not always acceptable to his immediate commanders, because perhaps in some instances his activity was a reproach to less decisive men. Indecision and too great precaution in others was revolting to him; and I think I never saw a more thoroughly disgusted man than Logan was on the occasion of the failure before Resaca, Georgia, on May 9, 1864, consequent on the refusal of McPherson to assault the town. Not only was Logan's offer to accomplish the desired object declined as impracticable, but the campaign was robbed of its promised fruits by that refusal, and not only Logan, but the whole country had reason to be disgusted. Logan took no pains to conceal his chagrin and disgust. The facts of the unfortunate affair were about these:

The Army of the Tennessee, at the time forming the right wing of Sherman's Grand Army, had, on the morning of May 9, debouched through the narrow defile of Snake Creek Gap, and appeared before Resaca, McPherson having positive orders to occupy the place. The movement through the Gap had turned Joe Johnston's position at Dalton, placed the Army of the Tennessee in his rear, and, if Resaca had been taken, would have closed the direct route to Atlanta, and forced the rebels to retreat by circuitous and almost impracticable roads, and at the probable cost of all his trains and heavy guns. There was no good reason, had Resaca been carried, why Johnston should not have been seriously damaged, and perhaps his army dispersed; and there is no good reason why Resaca was not taken on this occasion. The force defending it was the small garrison of a ten-gun fort and sixteen hundred dismounted cavalry under the rebel General Canty, who were engaged in patroling and observing the Oostanaula River. Johnston could not, on May 9, have concentrated two thousand men at Resaca for its defense. General McPherson had not less than thirty thousand men in front of the position, and not a mile distant from the fort. Unfortunately, General Granville M. Dodge, commanding the Sixteenth Corps, and a man of even less decision than McPherson, happened on that morning to be in advance, and Logan was in reserve. On approaching Resaca, and after occupying a low ridge of hills commanding the town and the river in its front, General Dodge halted his command and began to reconnoitre. The delay in the advance brought McPherson and Logan to the front, and from a prominent knob of the range of hills which had been carried by Dodge, they examined the town and calculated in their own minds the chances of carrying the position. Dodge finally reported the passage of the river and the capture of the fort as impracticable, and declared it as his belief that a large force was then in the town. Logan rather warmly and hastily disputed this, and declared that he could carry the fort and town with his corps. General McPherson revolved the matter over in his mind, and as the woman who hesitates is lost, so with the commander who in an emergency stops to calculate, he lost the opportunity. While he was hesitating and doubting between the arguments of Dodge and the assertions and declarations of Logan--for Logan is not the man to offer arguments when the opportunity for demonstration is at hand--time was consumed, and finally, much to the disgust of every body who had come out to fight, McPherson ordered the whole army back to Snake Creek Gap, and employed a large part of it all the ensuing night in throwing up works to defend a defile which was apparently strong enough to defend itself.

The next day Sherman began moving the rest of the army through Snake Creek Gap, and at the same time Johnston evacuated Dalton, and began marching on Resaca. At night on that or the next day, May 11th, while General Logan and staff and myself were at supper, General John M. Palmer and others on the march stopped at Logan's tent, and were asked to take a cup of coffee. While we were eating, the conversation turned on the situation, and I remarked that evidently "Joe Johnston had been caught sleeping." Logan and Palmer both in a breath answered that it wasn't at all certain that Johnston was napping, but that, on the contrary, it was very improbable that we could do more than strike his rear guard at Resaca. This turned out, in the end, to be the case. The whole of Sherman's army was not ready to advance until the 12th of May, when it moved forward, Logan this time in advance, and occupied, after considerable hard fighting with Johnston's rear division, the very same position which McPherson had previously held on the 9th, and from which, even with Resaca uncaptured, Johnston would have had great difficulty in dislodging him. But now, three days behind time, Sherman, and Thomas, and Logan, and a number of others who had gathered on the bald knob to which I have before alluded as overlooking Resaca, had the melancholy pleasure of witnessing Joe Johnston's army filing through the town and taking up positions defending it, and covering the bridges and fords of the Oostanaula.

When he had first secured this position, Logan ordered one of his batteries, commanded by Captain De Gress, to take position on the knob I have mentioned, and open upon the bridge and fort. The order was obeyed with alacrity. Courage is a sort of magnet which attracts its like; it surrounded Logan with men of his own stamp, among whom were Major Charles J. Stolbrand and Captain Francis De Gress, and it was not long before these two had the battery posted and ready to open at Logan's command. I was at the time on this knob, and anticipated seeing some handsome artillery practice and a great scattering among the rebels, very plainly visible below, crossing the river and moving about in the fort, not much over a mile distant. But it was destined that the scattering should be among our own forces supporting De Gress's battery and lying along the ridge, and particularly was there to be "much scattering" on my part. I had noticed, as had others, the peculiar appearance of the hill on which the battery was posted and on which I stood, but had not suspected why the change had been wrought. The trees, with the exception of a single tall, straight oak left standing in the centre and on the very summit of the knob, had been carefully felled, and the tops thrown down the sides and slope of the hill, forming a sort of abatis, and making the approach to the summit rather difficult. Several persons had made inquiries and suggestions as to the purpose of the rebels in clearing the hill and forming the abatis around it, but it was not until De Gress had opened fire on Resaca that the mystery was solved. Then it suddenly flashed on the minds of all simultaneously with the flash of the first rebel gun in the fort in Resaca. The first round of De Gress came very near being his last, for the ten guns in the rebel fort beyond the river opened simultaneously on him, and every shot fell among the guns and troops supporting them. It was then discovered that the hill on which De Gress had posted his guns had been cleared by the rebels and one tree left standing as a target for artillery practice. For at least a year the gunners in the fort in Resaca had been practicing by firing at this tree, and they had the range of the hill to such accuracy that every shot fell in our midst. The first broadside sent me to cover, and I hastily dropped behind a huge oak stump left standing, and which afforded ample protection. Here I could see the rebels at their guns, watch De Gress and Stolbrand at theirs, and, by turning half around, see the troops which lay near me supporting the battery. The first shells thrown by the rebels had wounded several of these, and their cries of pain, as they were carried to the rear, could be plainly heard, and did not in any great measure add to my comfort, or increase my confidence in the invulnerability of my position, and I began to conclude it was not bomb proof. Meantime the rebels were firing vigorously, and after two or three shots De Gress was silenced--not that his guns were disabled, but that the men could not work them. The place was literally too hot to allow of a man exposing himself, and all but Logan, Stolbrand, and De Gress sought cover, and clung as closely as possible to the ground. These three, however, stood their ground, very foolishly I thought at the time, and how they escaped being struck I can not conceive. The fire of the rebels was singularly accurate, and from the cries of our wounded it was apparent that it was also very effective. I had been lying behind the stump whose protection I had sought for twenty minutes, looking with interest at the firing of the rebels, when a shell from one of their guns struck directly in front of the stump, entered and plowed up the ground for a distance of ten feet, sending the soil high in the air like spray, and then, striking the stump, bounded high above it, and fell about five feet behind me with a heavy _thug_! The soil which had been thrown up by it descended about me, and, as I crouched low, making myself as small as possible, and wishing myself even smaller, literally buried me alive. I thought every piece of the soil which struck me was going through me. At last, when the shell descended near me, my demoralization was complete. Fearing that it would explode, I sprang up from my recumbent position and ran with all my speed to the left of the line. As I did so I came to the abatis of timber, heaped at least four feet high. I never stopped to consider, but, without hesitation, made a tremendous leap, and cleared the obstructions at a bound, amid the loud laughter of a whole brigade, which, looking on, actually rose up to laugh at and applaud my hasty retreat. When I reached a place of safety out of range of the rebels, and beyond reach of the particular shell which I had so much dreaded, I found that the confounded thing had not exploded. I was too much demoralized, however, to contemplate going back while the rebels held the range of that hill, and so sat down, carefully getting behind another stump, to receive the congratulations of the colonel and adjutant of one of the supporting regiments on the gymnastic abilities which I had just displayed.

It was not until sundown and after the cessation of the firing that I ventured to return to the hill. Here Logan and Stolbrand still remained, and Sherman, Thomas, and others had also come up. While the others consulted together Logan sat aside, leaning against _my_ stump, and looking exceedingly glum and disgusted. When I approached him he looked up and laughed, evidently at the recollection of my demoralization and flight. I sat down beside him and said,

"Well, general, you see I was right last night. Some body was asleep."

"Yes," said he, in answer, "but you was mistaken in the person. It was not Joe Johnston who was napping."

There was good reason to be morose over this affair. The failure of McPherson on the 9th of May made the campaign of Atlanta a necessity. Had Logan, instead of Dodge, been in advance of McPherson's army on the 9th of May, there would have been no Hope Church affair, no Kenesaw Mountain sacrifice, no battles on the Chattahoochee, or before Atlanta, or at Jonesborough, for the campaign would have been ended, and Atlanta captured at Resaca in the dispersion of Joe Johnston's army.

Something of this same ability in execution which was developed in Logan and the others to whom I have alluded characterized General John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, and few officers labored more zealously or more effectively than he did. His adventurous disposition, developed early in life, and leading him to a remarkably varied career, could not be other than the result of a bold and daring nature, which led him early to seek activity when he might have chosen a more passive but less glorious life. His enthusiastic ardor for military life rendered him in his youth an adept in all military matters, and led him naturally into the military service of the country. He was built, too, for a soldier, possessing a rare _physique_, his tall, burly figure reminding one of Rousseau or Steedman. His adventurous career began in Mexico, where, as colonel of the Second Pennsylvania, he served with distinction under Scott, from Vera Cruz to the capital, suffering wounds at Chepultepec and at the assault of the city of Mexico. After the war, sighing, like Hooker, for the excitements of California, he went to San Francisco, and was soon after appointed postmaster, and subsequently elected mayor. President Pierce appointed him Governor of Kansas, but Buchanan decapitated him on account of his adherence to the person and principles of Douglas. He early entered the war for the Union as Colonel of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry, and fought through each grade to the position of major general, winning a bright reputation as a bold and unflinching fighter.

The most remarkable of Geary's exploits was the famous "midnight battle of Wauhatchie," a sort of companion picture to Joe Hooker's "battle above the clouds." It took place, too, at the foot of the mountain on which Hooker fought, and was, in a measure, preliminary to that struggle. It was fought for position, but a position of vital importance to both the rebels and Union forces, and consequently it was fought for with great desperation. The movement which brought it about was the first of those looking to the relief of the starving army at Chattanooga, and the purpose was to occupy a position which would cover a road by which provisions could be brought from the railroad terminus at Bridgeport. The occupation of this position was absolutely necessary, and Geary was fully impressed with the importance of quickly seizing and desperately holding on to it. By the success of the movement the route to Bridgeport would be shortened by many miles; on its being thus shortened depended the provisioning of Chattanooga; on this contingency depended the holding of that position, and on the retention of that position the safety of the army and its immense and valuable material.

Geary seized the position with great alacrity, and much to the astonishment of the rebel Longstreet, who watched him from the summit of Lookout Mountain. From his position on "Signal Rock"--an overarching rock on the western side of the mountain--Longstreet had before his eyes the whole country as on a map, and when, in the dusk of evening, the camp-fires of Geary and Howard's troops located the positions which Hooker had seized and was fortifying, the importance of the success attained flashed upon Longstreet's mind in an instant, and he saw, in the seizure of Wauhatchie by Geary, the virtual relief of the besieged garrison of Chattanooga. He at once communicated with Bragg, and on explaining the altered situation to that officer, the latter at once directed Longstreet to attack Geary and Howard, and drive them back at all hazards. Longstreet returned to his position on "Signal Rock," and soon had his troops in readiness to descend from their position on the mountain, and assault Geary at Wauhatchie. From his position on "Signal Rock" Longstreet directed the assault by signals, and to this circumstance, singularly enough, he owed his defeat. Geary's force was totally inadequate to contend with the superior forces of the enemy. General Schurz, who was sent by Hooker to re-enforce him, never reached the position, and but from the fact that Geary's signal-officers could read the rebel signals, he must have been overwhelmed and driven from the position. For some months previous to this battle our signal-officers had been in possession of the rebel signal code, and hence the flaming torches of Longstreet's signal-officers on "Signal Rock" revealed to Geary every order given to the rebel troops advancing against him. He was thus made aware of Longstreet's plan of attack, was enabled to anticipate and meet every movement of the rebels, and, thus forewarned, so to employ his small force by concentration in the critical part of the field at the critical moment of attack as to repulse every assault which was made, either by counter-charges or rapid flank movements. After repeatedly throwing themselves against Geary's force in vain, the rebels at length drew off discomfited. During the whole battle the flaming torch of Longstreet flashed orders that showed, after each repulse, his increased desperation, and finally, much to Geary's gratification, he saw it signal the recall. All the while the figure of Longstreet on "Signal Rock," standing out boldly against the dark sky, was plainly visible, and, as Geary once remarked, forcibly reminded him of a picture which he had once seen of Satan on the mountain pointing out the riches of the world to the Tempted, save that only the figure of the Tempter was visible.