went! As Sheridan rode up to the guns, the heels of Breckinridge's horse glittered in the last rays of sunshine. That crest was hardly "well off with the old love before it was on with the new."

But the scene on the narrow plateau can never be painted. As the blue coats surged over its edge, cheer on cheer rang like bells through the valley of the Chickamauga. Men flung themselves exhausted upon the ground. They laughed and wept, shook hands, embraced; turned round and did all four over again. It was as wild as a carnival. Granger was received with a shout. "Soldiers," he said, "you ought to be court-martialed every man of you. I ordered you to take the riflepits and you scaled the mountain!" but it was not Mars's horrid front exactly with which he said it, for his cheeks were wet with tears as honest as the blood that reddened all the route. Wood uttered words that rang like "Napoleon's," and Sheridan, the rowels at his horse's danks, was ready for a dash down the Ridge with a "view halloo," for a fox hunt.

But you must not think this was all there was of the scene on the crest, for fight and frolic was strangely mingled. Not a rebel had dreamed a man of us all would live to reach the summit, and when a little wave of the Federal cheer rolled up and broke over the crest, they defiantly cried "Hurrah and be damned !" the next minute a Union regiment followed the voice, the rebels delivered their fire, and tumbled down in the rifle-pits, their faces distorted with fear. No sooner had the soldiers scrambled to the Ridge and straightened themselves, than up muskets and away they blazed. One of them, fairly beside himself between laughing and crying, seemed puzzled at which end of his piece he should load, and so abandoning the gun and the problem together, he made a catapult of himself and fell to hurling stones after the enemy. And he said, as he threw-well, you know our "army swore terribly in Flanders." Bayonets glinted and muskets rattled. Gen. Sheridan's horse was killed under him; Richard was not in his role, and so he leaped upon a rebel gun for want of another. Rebel artillerists are driven from their batteries at the edge of the sword and the point of the bayonet; two rebel guns are swung around upon their old masters. But there is nobody to load them. Light and heavy artillery do not belong to the winged kingdom. Two infantry men claiming to be old artillerists, volunteer. Granger turns captain of the guns, and right about wheel!--in a moment they are growling after the flying enemy. I say "flying," but that is figurative. The many rua like Spanish merinos, but the few fight like gray wolves at bay;

they load and fire as they retreat; they are fairly scorched out of position.

A sharpshooter, fancying Granger to be worth the powder, coolly tries his hand at him. The General hears the zip of a ball at one ear, but doesn't mind it. In a minute away it sings at the other. He takes the hint, sweeps with his glass the direction whence the couple came, and brings up the marksman, just drawing a bead upon him again. At that instant a Federal argument persuades the cool hunter and down he goes. That long range gun of his was captured, weighed twentyfour pounds, was telescope-mounted, a sort of mongrel howitzer.

A colonel is slashing away with his sabre in a ring of rebels. Down goes his horse under him; they have him on the hip; one of them is taking deliberate aim, when up rushes a lieutenant, claps a pistol to one ear and roars in at the other, "Who the h--l are you shooting at?" The fellow drops his piece, gasps out, "I surrender," and the next instant the gallant lieutenant falls sharply wounded. He is a "roll of honor" officer, straight up from the ranks, and he honors the roll.

A little German in Wood's Division is pierced like the lid of a pepper box, but he is neither dead nor wounded. "See here," he says, rushing up to a comrade, "a pullet hit te preach of mine gun, a pullet in miue pocket-book- —a pullet in mine coat tail--they shoots me tree, five time, and py dam I gives dem h-l yet!"

But I can render you no idea of the battle caldron that boiled on the plateau. An incident here and there, I have given you, and you must fill out the picture for yourself. Dead rebels lay thick around Bragg's head-quarters and along the Ridge. Scabbards, broken arms, artillery horses, wrecks of gun-carriages, and bloody garments, strewed the scene; and, tread lightly, oh! loyal-hearted, the boys in blue are lying there; no more the sounding charge, no more the brave, wild cheer, and never for them, sweet as the breath of the new-mown hay in the old home fields, "The Soldier's Return from the War." A little waif of a drummer-boy, somehow drifted up the mountain in the surge, lies there; his pale face upward, a olue spot on his breast. Muffle his drum for the poor child and his mother.

Our troops met one loyal welcome on the height. How the old Tennesseean that gave it managed to get there nobody knows, but there he was, grasping a colonel's hand, and saying, while the tears ran down his face, "GOD be thanked! I knew the Yankees would fight!" With the receding flight and swift pursuit the battle died away in murmurs, far down the valley of the Chickamauga; Sheridan was again in the

saddle, and with his command spurring on after the enemy. Tall columns of smoke were rising at the left. The rebels were burning a train of stores a mile long. In the exploding rebel caissons we had "the cloud by day," and now we are having "the pillar of fire by night." The sun, the golden dish of the scales that balance day and night, had hardly gone down, when up, beyond Mission Ridge, rose the silver side, for that night it was full moon. The troubled day was done. A Federal General sat in the seat of the man who, on the very Saturday before the battle, had sent a flag to the Federal lines with the words:

"Humanity would dictate the removal of all non-combatants from Chattanooga, as I am about to shell the city !"

Sat there, and announced to the Fourth Corps the congratulations and thanks, just placed in his hands, from the commander of the depart

ment:

BRAGG'S HEAD-QUARTERS, MISSION RIDGE, Į
November 25, 1863.

}

In conveying to you this distinguished recognition of your signal gallantry in carrying, through a terrible storm of iron, a mountain crowned with batteries and enriched with rifle-pits, I am constrained to express my own admiration of your noble conduct, and am proud to tell you that the veteran Generals from other fields, who witnessed your heroic bearing, place your assault and triumph among the most brilliant achievements of the war. Thanks, soldiers! You have made, this day, a glorious page of history.

GORDON GRANGER.

There was a species of poetic justice in it all, that would have made the prince of dramatists content. The ardor of the men had been quenchless there had been three days of fitful fever, and after it, alas! a multitude had slept well. The work on the right, left, and centre, cost us full four thousand killed and wounded. There is a tremble of the lip, but a flash of pride in the eye, as the soldier tells with how many he went in-how expressive that "went in!" Of a truth it was wading in deep waters-with how few we came out. I cannot try to swing the burden clear of any heart, by throwing into the scale upon the other side the dead weight of fifty-two pieces of captured artillery, ten thousand stand of arms, and heaps of dead rebels, or by driving upon a herd of seven thousand prisoners. Nothing of all this can lighten that burden a single ounce, but this thought may, and I dare to utter it Those three days' work brought Tennessee to resurrection; set the flag

that fairest blossom in all this flowery world, to blooming in its native soil once more.

That splendid march from the Federal line of battle to the crest, was made in one hour and five minutes, but it was a grander march towards the end of rebeldom; a glorious campaign of sixty-five minutes towards the white borders of peace. It made that fleeting November afternoon imperishable. Than the assault upon Mission Ridge, I know of nothing more gallant in the annals of the war. Let it rank foremost with the storming of Fort Scharnitz and Alma, that covered the French arms with undying fame.

Reader and writer must walk together down the heights another day; press that rugged earth with the first backward step a loyal foot has made upon it, and as we linger, recall a few of the incidents that will render it historic and holy ground for coming time. Let the struggle be known as the Battle of Mission Ridge, and when, in calmer days, men make pilgrimage, and women smile again among the mountains of the Cumberland, they will need no guide. Rust will have eaten the guns; the graves of the heroes will have subsided like waves; weary of their troubling, the soldier and his leader will have lain down together; but there, embossed upon the globe, MISSION RIDGE will stand its fitting monument forever.*

General Grant announced the victory in the following few but telling words:

CHATTANOOGA, November 25, 1863.-7.15 P. M. Major-General H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief:

Although the battle lasted from early dawn till dark this evening, I believe I am not premature in announcing a complete victory over Bragg. Lookout Mountain top, all the rifle-pits in Chattanooga Valley, and Missionary Ridge entire have been carried, and are now held by us. U. S. GRANT, Major-General.

The rebel dispatch is thus worded:

CHICKAMAUGA, November 25, 1863.

General S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General :

After several unsuccessful assaults on our lines to-day, the enemy carried the left centre about four o clock. The whole left soon gave way in considerable disorder. The right maintained its ground, and repelled every attack. I am withdrawing all to this point.

BRAXTON BRAGG.

* Mr. B. F. Taylor's correspondence to the Chicago Journal.

CHAPTER LII.

RETROSPECT OF THE THREE DAYS' BATTLES.

PERHAPS no better retrospect of these battles could be written, than that which will be found in the following pithy dispatch from General Meigs, Quartermaster-General of the United States Army, who was present at Chattanooga during the whole action:

HEAD-QUARTERS, CHATTANOOGA, Nov. 26, 1863. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: On the 23d instant, at half-past eleven, A. M., General Grant ordered a demonstration against Missionary Ridge, to develop the force holding it. The troops marched out, formed in order, and advanced in line of battle as if on parade.

The rebels watched the formation and movement from their picket lines and rifle-pits, and from the summits of Missionary Ridge, five hundred feet above us, and thought it was a review and drill, so openly and deliberately, so regular, was it all done.

The line advanced, preceded by skirmishers, and at two o'clock P. M. reached our picket lines, and opened a rattling volley upon the rebel pickets, who replied and ran into their advanced line of rifle-pits. After them went our skirmishers and into them, along the centre of the line of 25,000 troops which General Thomas had so quickly displayed, until we opened fire. Prisoners assert that they thought the whole movement was a review and general drill, and that it was too late to send to their camps for re-enforcements, and that they were overwhelmed by force of numbers. It was a surprise in open daylight.

At three P. M., the important advanced position of Orchard Knob and the lines right and left were in our possession, and arrangements were ordered for holding them during the night.

The next day at daylight General Sherman had five thousand men across the Tennessee, and established on its south bank, and commenced the construction of a pontoon bridge about six miles above Chattanooga.