climb. A heavy cloud was on the mountain, combed by the pine-tops a thousand feet above our heads.

As we proceeded, I conversed with the General's orderly. He was a good-looking young fellow with short curly hair and a sallow complexion. I inquired to what regiment he belonged.

"The Sixth Ohio, colored." I looked at him with surprise. "You did n't take me for a colored man, I reckon," he said laughingly.

I thought he must be jesting, but he assured me that he was

not.

"I was born in bondage," he said, "near Memphis. My master was my father, and my mother's owner. He made a will that she was to be free, and that I was to learn a trade, and have my freedom when I was twenty-one. He died when I was seven years old, and the estate was divided between his mother and two sisters. I don't know what became of the will. I was run off into Middle Tennessee and sold for three hundred dollars. I was sold again when I was fourteen for sixteen hundred dollars. I was a carpenter; and carpenters was high. When I saw other men no whiter than me working for themselves and enjoying their freedom, I got discontented, and made up my mind to put out. The year Buchanan run for President I run for freedom. I got safe over into Ohio, and there I worked at my trade till the war broke out. I went out as an officer's servant."

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He met with various adventures, and at length became General Grant's body-servant. He described the General as a short, chunked man, like a Dutchman ; " quiet, kind, a great smoker, a heavy drinker, very silent, and seldom excited. "There was only one time when he appeared troubled in his mind. That was on the road to Corinth, after the battle of Shiloh. He used to walk his room all night."

After the government began to make use of colored troops he went back to Ohio and enlisted. Since the war closed, he had obtained a furlough, returned to his native place, and found his mother, who in the mean time had been held as slave.

"BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS."

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The clouds lifted as we reached the summit of the mountain, fifteen hundred feet above the river. We passed through Summer Town, a deserted village, formerly a place of resort for families from Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, during the hot season. A rough road over the rocks and through the woods took us to Point Lookout, a mile farther north.

A lookout indeed! What cloud shadows were sweeping the mountains and valleys! We left our horses tied to some trees, and clambered down over the ledges to the brink of the preci pice. Away on the northeast was Chattanooga, with its clusters of roofs resembling saw-teeth. Below us was the crooked Tennessee, sweeping up to the base of the mountain, in a coil enclosing on the opposite side a foot-shaped peninsula, to which the Indians gave the appropriate name of Moccasin Point.

Immediately beneath us, on a shelf of the mountain, between its river-washed base and the precipice on which we stood, was the scene of Hooker's famous "battle in the clouds." The Rebels occupied a cleared space on that tremendous elevation. Behind them rose the crags; before them gloomed the woods, covering the lower part of the mountain. Along the cleared space, between the woods and the crags, ran their line of stone breastworks, which still remained, looking like a common farm-wall. The enemy had heavy guns on the summit of the mountain, but they could not be got into position, or sufficiently depressed, to be of service. Beside, the summit, on the morning of the attack, was immersed in mist, which concealed everything. The mist did not envelop the scene of the fight, however, but hung over it; so that the "battle in the clouds" was in reality a battle under the clouds.

The Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad runs around the curve of the river, under the mountain. As we sat looking down from the Point, a coal-train appeared, crawling along the track like a black snake.

Returning over the crest to the summit of the road, we paid a visit to Mr. Foster, known as the "Old Man of the Mountain." He was living in a plain country-house on the eastern

brow, with the immense panorama of hills and vales and forests daily before his eyes. He was one of the valiant, unflinching Union men of the South. In its wild nest on that crag his liberty-loving soul had lived, untamed as an eagle, through the perils and persecutions of the war. He was sixty-nine years old; which fact he expressed in characteristically quaint style: "Tennessee came into the Union the sixth day of June, 1796; and on the twenty-second day of June I came into the world to see about it."

His father was a Revolutionary soldier. "He was shot to pieces, in a manner. It took a heap of his blood to nourish Uncle Sam when he was a little feller. I recollect his saying to me, There's going to be wars; and when they come, I want you to remember what the Stars and Stripes cost your old father.' I did not forget the lesson when this cursed secession war begun."

He was by trade a carpenter. He came up on the mountain to live twenty years before, on account of his health, which was so poor in the valley that people said he was going to die, but which had been robust ever since. Twice during the war he was condemned by the Vigilance Committee to be hung for his Union sentiments and uncompromising freedom of speech. Twice the assassins came to his house to take him.

"The first time they came, it was Sunday. My wife had gone over the mountain to preaching, and I was alone. I loaded up my horse-pistol for 'em, -sixteen buck-shot: I put in a buck load, I tell ye. There was only two of 'em; and I thought I was good for three or four. They'd hardly got inside the gate when I went out to 'em, and asked what they wanted. One said, 'We 've come for Old Foster!' I just took the rascal by the arm, and gave him a monstrous clamp, I thought I felt the bone, and shoved him head-overheels out of that gate. I was going to shoot t'other feller, but they rode off so fast down the mountain I had no chance."

The next attempt on his life resulted similarly. After that, the Committee did not persist in getting him executed. "I

"OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN."

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was so old, I suppose they thought I was of no account." He told of several other Union men, however, whom they had caused to be hung. "After the Rebels got brushed out, Sherman and Hooker came to pay me a visit, and denominated me the Old Man of the Mountain.""

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SOLDIERS' CEMETERY.

A MILE and a quarter southeast from the town is the National Cemetery of Chattanooga. An area of seventy-five acres has there been set apart by the military authorities for the burial of the soldiers who died in hospitals or fell on battlefields in that region renowned for sanguinary conflicts. It occupies a hill which seems to have been shaped by Providence for this purpose: its general form is circular, and it rises with undulations, showing a beautiful variety of curves and slopes, to a superb summit, which swells like a green dome over all.

General Thomas, commanding the Division of the Tennessee, was nominally the director of the cemetery works. But he appears to have left all in the hands of Mr. Van Horne, chaplain of the post, who, in addition to his other duties, assumed the responsible task of laying out the grounds and supervising the interments. His plan has certainly the merit of originality, and will prove, in the end, I have no doubt, as beautiful as it is unique. Copying nothing from the designs of other cemeteries, he has taken Nature for his guide. The outline of each separate section is determined by its location. Here, for example, is a shield, — the rise of the ground and the natural lines of depression suggesting that form. In the centre of each section is a monument; immediately surrounding which are the graves of officers, in positions according to their numbers and rank; while around the latter are grouped the graves of private soldiers, in lines adapted to the general shape of the section. The paths and avenues follow the hollows and curves which sweep from the base in every direction towards the summit. This is surrounded by a single circular