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, and 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.