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ground with one sound along the whole line. The contrast of colors was superb, - the black faces, the white gloves, the blue uniforms, the bright steel. The music by the colored band was mellow and inspiring; and as a background to the picture we had a golden sunset behind the mountains.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

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CHAPTER XXXIV.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

THE next morning General Gillem, in command at Chattanooga, supplied me with a horse, and gave me his orderly for an attendant, and I set out to make the ascent of Lookout Mountain.

Riding out southward on one of the valley roads, we had hardly crossed Chattanooga Creek before we missed our way. Fortunately we overtook a farmer and his son, who set us right. They were laboring over the base of the mountain with a wagon drawn by a pair of animals that appeared to have been mated by some whimsical caprice. A tall, bony horse was harnessed in with the smallest mule I ever saw. Imagine a lank starved dog beside a rat, and you have an idea of the ludicrous incongruity of the match.

The man had in his wagon a single bag of grist, which he had to help over the rough mountain-roads by lifting at the wheels. He had been twelve miles to mill: "away beyant Missionary Ridge." I asked him if there was no mill nearer home." Thar's a mill on Wahatchie Crick, but it's mighty hard to pull thar. Wahatchie Hill is a powerful bad hill to pull up." He did not seem to think twelve miles to mill anything, and we left him lifting cheerfully at the wheels, while his son shouted and licked the team. I trust his wife appreciated that bag of grist.

Riding southward along the eastern side of the mountain, we commenced the ascent of it by a steep, rough road, winding among forest-trees, and huge limestone rocks colored with exquisite tints of brown and gray and green, by the moss and lichens that covered them. A range of precipitous crags rose before us, and soon hung toppling over us as we continued to

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 be tween 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 a slave.

"BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS."

257

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 precipice. 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 '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."

to me,

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.

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"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

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