the dim sky, and the illusion was fully sustained by the light-gray military cloak which he folded around him.  His face was pale, but wore a determined expression, and at times he drew nearer the center of the ring and said a few words, which were listened to with great attention.  It may be he had some foreboding of the fate he was to meet on the morrow, for he did not seem to take much part in the discussion.  General Breckenridge lay stretched out on a blanket near the fire, and occasionally sat upright and added a few words of counsel.  General Bragg spoke frequently and with earnestness.  General Polk sat on a camp-stool at the outside of the circle, and held his head between his hands, seeming buried in thought.  Others reclined or sat in various positions.  What a grand study for a Rembrandt was this, to see these men, who held the lives of many thousands in their power, planning how best to invoke the angel Azrael to hurl his darts with the breaking of morning light.

For two hours the council lasted, and as it broke up, and the generals were ready to return to their respective commands, I heard General Beauregard say,—­raising his hand and pointing in the direction of the Federal camps, whose drums we could plainly hear,—­“Gentlemen, we sleep in the enemy’s camp to-morrow night.”

The Confederate generals had minute information of General Grant’s position and numbers.  This knowledge was obtained through spies and informers, some of whom had lived in that part of the country and knew every foot of the ground.

Yet that was a dreary night to prepare for the dreadful battle of to-morrow.  The men were already weary, hungry, and cold.  No fires were allowed, except in holes in the ground, over which the soldiers bent with their blankets round their shoulders, striving to catch and concentrate the little heat that struggled up through the bleak April air.  Many a poor fellow wrote his last sentence in his note-book that night by the dim light of these smothered fires, and sat and talked in undertones of home, wife, and mother, sister or sweetheart.  Promises were made to take care of each other, if wounded, or send word home, if slain; keepsakes were looked at again for the last time, and silent prayers were offered by men unused to look above.  What an awful thing is war!  Here lay, almost within cannon-shot of one another, eighty or ninety thousand men—­brothers of the same race and nation, many of them blood relations; thousands of them believing in the same Saviour, and worshiping the same God, their prayers meeting that night at the throne of Heavenly Grace;—­yet waiting for the light of the holy Sabbath that they may see how most surely to destroy one another!  And yet the masses of these have no ill feeling.  It is human butchery, at the bidding of arch-conspirators.  Upon them be all the blood shed!  A fearful guilt is theirs!

What sleep the men could get on the cold, damp ground, with little protection or fire, they secured during the early part of Saturday night.  On Sunday morning, the 6th of April, we were under arms and ready to move by three o’clock.