fice of epidermis before the teeth of the frost could be made to let go, he remarked excitedly,—

"I would n't let de iron git holt o' my hand! I hain't no skin to spar', mornin' like dis sher!"

As I sat at breakfast with the General, he told me of his official intercourse with the inhabitants, since he had been in command of the post. "The most I have to do," said he, "is to adjust difficulties between Union men and Rebels. There are many men living in this country who acted as scouts for our army, and who, when they wanted a horse to use in the service of the government, took it without much ceremony where they could find it. For acts of this kind the law-loving Rebels are now suing them for damages before the civil courts, and persecuting them in various ways, so that the military power has to interfere to protect them."

ROSECRANS'S FORTRESS.

275

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

STONE RIVER.

AFTER breakfast in a large dining-room which no fuel could heat, we went and stood by the hearth, turning ourselves on our heels, as the earth turns on its axis, warming a hemisphere at a time, until the wintry condition of our bodies gave place to a feeling of spring, half sunshine and half chill; then we clapped on our overcoats and mufflers; then two powerful war-horses of the General's came prancing to the door, ready bridled and saddled; and we mounted. A vigorous gallop across the outskirts of the town and out on the Nashville Pike set the sympathetic blood also on a gallop, and did for us what fire in a Tennessee mansion could not do. In ten minutes we were thoroughly warm, with the exception of one thumb in a glove which I wore, and an ear on the windward side of the General's rosy face.

Riding amid stump-fields, where beautiful forests had cast their broad shades before the war, we entered the area of the vast fortress constructed by the army of Rosecrans, lying at Murfreesboro' after the battle. This is the largest work of the kind in the United States. A parapet of earth three miles in circumference encloses a number of detached redoubts on commanding eminences. The encircled space is a mile in diameter. It contained all Rosecrans's storehouses, and was large enough to take in his entire army. It would require at least ten thousand troops to man its breastworks. The converging lines of the railroad and turnpike running to Nashville pass through it; and across the north

front

sweeps a bend of Stone River. We found the stream

partly frozen, chafing between abrupt rocky shores sheathed

in ice.

A mile beyond, the converging lines above mentioned cut each other at a sharp angle; the railroad, which goes out of Murfreesboro' on the left, shifting over to the right of the turnpike. Crossing them at nearly right angles, a short distance on the Murfreesboro' side of their point of intersection, was the Rebel line of battle, on the morning of the thirtyfirst of December. Half a mile beyond this point, on the Nashville side, was the Union line.

The railroad here runs through a cut, with a considerable embankment, -a circumstance of vital importance to our army, saving it, probably, from utter rout and destruction, on that first day of disaster. The right wing, thrown out two miles and more to the west of the railroad, rested on nothing. It was left hanging in the air, as the French say. An attack was expected, yet no precautions were taken to provide against an attack. General Wood, who had posted scouts in trees to observe the movements of the Rebels, reported to the commanding general that they were rapidly moving troops over and massing them on their left. Rosecrans says he sent the information to McCook; McCook says he never received it. When the attack came, it was a perfect surprise. It was made with the suddenness and impetuosity for which the enemy was distinguished, and everything gave way before it, Division after division was pushed back, until the line, which was projected nearly perpendicular to the railroad in the morning, lay parallel to it, that providential cut affording an opportune cover for the rallying and re-forming of the troops.

Another feature of the field is eminently noticeable. The bold river banks, curving in and out, along by the east side of the railroad, made a strong position for the Union left to rest upon. Here, in a little grove called by the Rebels the "Round Forest," between the river and the railroad, was General Wood's division, planted like a post. On his right, like a bolt of iron in that post, was Hazen's brigade, serving as a pivot on which the whole army line swung round like a gate. The pivot itself was immovable. In vain the enemy concentrated

SOLDIERS' CEMETERY AND MONUMENT.

277

his utmost efforts against it. Terribly smitten and battered, but seemingly insensible as iron itself, there it stuck.1

It was extremely interesting to visit this portion of the field in company with one who played so important a part in the events enacted there. We rode through a cotton-field of black leafy stalks, with little white bunches clinging to them like feathers or snow. It was across that field, between Round Forest and the railroad, that Hazen's line was formed. On the edge of it, by the forest, still lay the bones of a horse shot under him during the battle.

Near by was a little cemetery, within which the dead of Hazen's brigade were buried. A well-built stone wall encloses an oblong space one hundred feet in length by forty in breadth. Within are thirty-one limestone tablets marking the graves of the common soldiers. In the midst of these stands a monument, on which are inscribed the names of officers whose remains are deposited beneath it. This is also of limestone, massy, well formed, ten feet square on the ground and eleven feet in height. It is interesting as being the only monument of importance and durability erected by soldiers during the war. On the south side, facing the railroad and turnpike, is the following legend:

"HAZEN'S BRIGADE

ΤΟ

THE MEMORY OF ITS SOLDIERS

WHO FELL AT

STONE RIVER, DEC. 31, 1862.

"Their faces toward heaven, their feet to the foe.'"

1 The right brigade of Palmer's division had been the last to yield. The left brigade, in command of Hazen, was thus exposed to fire in flank and rear, and to the attempts of the enemy to charge in front. It required terrible fighting to beat back the enemy's double lines: it cost a third of the brave brigade; but every moment the enemy was held back was worth a thousand men to the main line. General Rosecrans improved the time so well, in hurrying troops to the new position, that, when the enemy assailed that line, the fresh divisions of Van Cleve, Wood, and Rousseau, and the artillery massed on a commanding point, not only repulsed them, but they were charged while retiring by one of Crittenden's brigades. The enemy had miscalculated the temper of Hazen's brigade; and Bragg was obliged to report, as he did in his first despatch, that he "had driven the whole Federal line, except his left, which stubbornly resisted."- · Annals of the Army of the Cumberland.

On the east side is the following:

"THE VETERANS OF SHILOH HAVE LEFT A DEATHLESS HERITAGE OF FAME UPON THE FIELD OF STONE RIVER." On the north side:

"Erected 1863, upon the ground where they fell, by their comrades of the Nineteenth Brigade, Buell's Army of the Ohio, Col. W. B. Hazen 41st Infantry O. Vols. commanding." On the west side:

"The blood of one third its soldiers twice spilled in Tennessee crimsons the battle-flag of the brigade and inspires to great deeds."

From the soldiers' cemetery at Round Forest we rode on to the new National Cemetery of Stone River, then in process of construction. It lies between the railroad and the turnpike, in full view from both. A massy square-cornered stone wall encloses a space of modest size, sufficiently elevated, and covered with neatly heaped mounds, side by side, and row behind row, in such precise order, that one might imagine the dead who sleep beneath them to have formed their ghostly ranks there after the battle, and carefully laid themselves down to rest beneath those small green tents. The tents were not green when I visited the spot, but I trust they are green to-day, and that the birds are singing over them.