march to a decisive victory over agrarian mercenaries, sent to subju. gate and despoil you of your liberties, property, and honor.

Remember the precious stake involved; remember the dependence of your mothers, your wives, your sisters, and your children, on the result. Remember the fair, broad, abounding lands, the happy homes, that will be desolated by your defeat. The eyes and hopes of eight million people rest upon you. You are expected to show yourselves worthy of your valor and courage, worthy of the women of the South, whose noble devotion in this war has never been exceeded in any time. With such incentives to brave deeds, and with trust that God is with us, your general will lead you confidently to the combat, assured of success.

By order of

General A. S. JOHNSTON, Commanding.

Like Satan in Paradise, a traitor anywhere can be eloquent in his crime, if he have genius and culture; and more melancholy than insanity is such a spectacle of perverted powers.

CHAPTER IX.

Saturday Night-General Grant a Scout-The Signals of Battle-The Combat Opens-The Scenes of Carnage-The Critical Hour-The Heroic Onset-The Victory-General Grant's Bravery-The Good News in New York and Washington-A Speech in favor of Grant, who is as sailed-Scenes on the Battle Field of Shiloh,

HE position of affairs, Saturday night, was unlike any other in the progress of the war. There was certainly the appearance of vigilance in our army. But the divisions were scattered; the Commanding General was at Savannah, ten miles from the threatened point, and Buell twenty miles away. Rebel sympathizers in the region had thoroughly posted the enemy, whose superior force had, it would seem, every possible advantage. And you must recollect, that nothing excepting the picket firing and light skirmishing changed at all the force of the many considerations which pointed to Corinth, the enemy's stronghold, as the battle field.

General Grant, we have seen, personally reconnoitred, to discover, if there were any, the indications that the rebels had advanced.

The beautiful Sabbath dawned. The foe, whose knowledge of our strength and position, and whose secrecy had favored the enthusiastic expectation of annihilating General Grant's forces, was in striking distance, moving like shadows through the twilight of the forest toward the dreaming battalions of the Republic. They had four lines, one behind the other; General Hardee led; next came General Bragg, then Bishop Polk, and, lastly, General Breckinridge's reserves. On they sweep. Sleeping soldiers in the tents die before the flying bullets. They bend in a semicircle round General Prentiss, whose shouts, "Don't give way! Stand firm!" are in vain.

But where is General Grant? "Boom! boom!" came the sound of the signal gun he had ordered if an attack occurred. He instantly ordered his horses, and the train ready. He sent a messenger to General Buell, ten miles away; and, in an hour and a quarter, was at the head of the army. The noble Sherman had already ridden with the speed of the wind over the field of chaotic strife, and stemmed the tide of disaster.

I shall not attempt to give you the exact aspect of the field, but the general result, especially General Grant's part in the fortunes of the day.

He found the fresh troops of Prentiss routed. Indeed, the entire front was broken in, and crushed back a mile. The mad, proud surges of rebellion, after carrying on their crest wrecks of Prentiss's, and then McClernand's command, dashed against that of Wallace. A shell cut

open General Johnston's thigh, and he was borne to the rear to bleed to death, while the terrible blow was concealed from his troops.

All the while, General Grant was breasting the wild tumult of panic and invasion, causing the arrest of a dozen frightened field officers, who were flying, and cry. ing, "We are whipped! Let every man who can, save himself!" With General Sherman to second every wisely-ordered movement, he held and reorganized the tumultuous masses of soldiery for ten long hours of bloody carnage.

At length there is a chance for the gunboats on the river, and their globes of iron and imprisoned fire go shrieking, bursting, up the ravine down which General Bragg's forces move, by order of Beauregard, to drive the broken columns of our army into the river. Destruction rides upon the awful storm of batteries protected by, and acting in concert with the boats. Said Colonel Fagan, of an Arkansas brigade :

"Three different times did we go into the 'Valley of Death,' and as often were forced back by overwhelming numbers, intrenched in a strong position. That all was done that possibly could be done, the heaps of killed and wounded left there give ample evidence."

About noon, General Buell reached the ground in advance of his columns He asked General Grant what preparations he had made for retreat in case of defeat.

"I am not going to be defeated," replied the iron man,

"Such an event is possible," added Buell; "and it is the duty of a prudent general to provide for such a con. tingency."

General Grant pointed to the transports, quietly ask ing:

"Don't you see those boats?"

"Yes;

but they will not carry more than ten thousand, and we have thirty thousand."

Well, ten thousand are more than I intend to retreat with," replied General Grant. General Buell evidently anticipated defeat.

When the sun hung low in the sky of that Sabbath day, he sent his beams aslant through the murky atmos phere, and along the ghastly heaps of the fallen. "We shall hold them yet," General Grant had said, even before any besides himself believed it. Yes, that fading sunlight has morning splendor in its farewell, to his eye. What ever others may have thought then, or still believe, General Grant expected to come unconquered out of the dire confusion.

There is a commotion on the bank opposite, and then a shout. General Buell is in sight. "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" The boats cross, and receive the timely reenforcement.

Oh, what a night was that, while we in our Northern homes were reposing peacefully after the undisturbed worship of the hallowed time! The shells went screaming through the sky, the terrible tokens of an mwilling