General Cleburne lay a few paces farther out,
and five or six other general officers sprawled elsewhere. It was a great
day for Confederates in the line of promotion.
For many minutes at a time broad spaces of battle were veiled in smoke. Of
what might be occurring there conjecture gave a terrifying report. In a
visible peril observation is a kind of defense; against the unseen we lift
a trembling hand. Always from these regions of obscurity we expected the
worst, but always the lifted cloud revealed an unaltered situation.
The assailants began to give way. There was no general retreat; at many
points the fight continued, with lessening ferocity and lengthening range,
well into the night. It became an affair of twinkling musketry and broad
flares of artillery; then it sank to silence in the dark.
Under orders to continue his retreat, Schofield could now do so
unmolested: Hood had suffered so terrible a loss in life and _morale_ that
he was in no condition for effective pursuit. As at Spring Hill, daybreak
found us on the road with all our impedimenta except some of our wounded,
and that night we encamped under the protecting guns of Thomas, at
Nashville. Our gallant enemy audaciously followed, and fortified himself
within rifle-reach, where he remained for two weeks without firing a gun
and was then destroyed.
'WAY DOWN IN ALABAM'
At the break-up of the great Rebellion I found myself at Selma, Alabama,
still in the service of the United States, and although my duties were now
purely civil my treatment was not uniformly so, and I am not surprised
that it was not.
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