“Well, that was doing the manly thing, sure; but go on about Atlanta.”

“I was telling about our brigade,” resumed the narrator.  “Of course, we think our regiment’s the best by long odds in the army—­every fellow thinks that of his regiment—­but next to it come the other regiments of our brigade.  There’s not a cent of discount on any of them.

“Sherman had stretched out his right away to the south and west of Atlanta.  About the middle of August our corps, commanded by Jefferson C. Davis, was lying in works at Utoy Creek, a couple of miles from Atlanta.  We could see the tall steeples and the high buildings of the City quite plainly.  Things had gone on dull and quiet like for about ten days.  This was longer by a good deal than we had been at rest since we left Resaca in the Spring.  We knew that something was brewing, and that it must come to a head soon.

“I belong to Company C. Our little mess—­now reduced to three by the loss of two of our best soldiers and cooks, Disbrow and Sulier, killed behind head-logs in front of Atlanta, by sharpshooters—­had one fellow that we called ‘Observer,’ because he had such a faculty of picking up news in his prowling around headquarters.  He brought us in so much of this, and it was generally so reliable that we frequently made up his absence from duty by taking his place.  He was never away from a fight, though.  On the night of the 25th of August, ‘Observer’ came in with the news that something was in the wind.  Sherman was getting awful restless, and we had found out that this always meant lots of trouble to our friends on the other side.

“Sure enough, orders came to get ready to move, and the next night we all moved to the right and rear, out of sight of the Johnnies.  Our well built works were left in charge of Garrard’s Cavalry, who concealed their horses in the rear, and came up and took our places.  The whole army except the Twentieth Corps moved quietly off, and did it so nicely that we were gone some time before the enemy suspected it.  Then the Twentieth Corps pulled out towards the North, and fell back to the Chattahoochie, making quite a shove of retreat.  The Rebels snapped up the bait greedily.  They thought the siege was being raised, and they poured over their works to hurry the Twentieth boys off.  The Twentieth fellows let them know that there was lots of sting in them yet, and the Johnnies were not long in discovering that it would have been money in their pockets if they had let that ‘moon-and-star’ (that’s the Twentieth’s badge, you know) crowd alone.

“But the Rebs thought the rest of us were gone for good and that Atlanta was saved.  Naturally they felt mighty happy over it; and resolved to have a big celebration—­a ball, a meeting of jubilee, etc.  Extra trains were run in, with girls and women from the surrounding country, and they just had a high old time.

“In the meantime we were going through so many different kinds of tactics that it looked as if Sherman was really crazy this time, sure.  Finally we made a grand left wheel, and then went forward a long way in line of battle.  It puzzled us a good deal, but we knew that Sherman couldn’t get us into any scrape that Pap Thomas couldn’t get us out of, and so it was all right.