arrived and raised this to 23,000 men. The arrival of this division determined the Confederates to assume the offensive in the hope of preventing a junction of the Federal forces. Bragg was present on the field, but left the command to Polk. The two divisions of Hardee were separated from the Federal lines by Chaplin's Creek. Anderson was opposed to Rousseau and Sheridan. Buckner, on his right, faced Jackson. Cheatham found himself on the left of Anderson, but by a fortunate chance was withdrawn from this position, and after a march to the right was placed in reserve behind the other two divisions. If he had commenced the battle on the left, he would have roused Crittenden and brought him back to the battle-field. About 2 o'clock, Buckner and Anderson put themselves in motion. Anderson attacked Rousseau's line. The Union troops made a splendid resistance and compelled the enemy to show himself openly. On the right Liddel's troops, led by Buckner, took advantage of the woods to approach Terrell's brigade unperceived.

It suddenly opened fire and marched right on the enemy's gun. Jackson was killed at the first discharge. The men broke in disorder. Terrell was killed trying to rally them. A fresh brigade checked the onset, but the line was staggering. Rousseau fell back to the creek. Buckner sent Cleburne's brigade forward to complete what seemed a rout. Its leader was wounded. Colonel Webster on our side was mortally wounded. The division lost one-fifth of its strength. Starkweather was compelled also to fall back with his brigade.

It was this success of Buckner's, steadily pushed by that commander, that brought the rebel left against Sheridan's right, which then advanced uncovered. He immediately attacked their flank furiously and under the movement re-formed his front. He opened an enfilading fire with his two batteries, and brought them to a halt at once. The soldiers who had just driven Rousseau's 5,000 men were unable to break Sheridan's lines. The indomitable little soldier, with his fresher troops, occupied a position easy to defend. All the efforts of the assailants were now directed against Sheridan. Posted along the edge of the wood which crowned the Chaplin Hills and commanding the open fields through which they, the "rebs," were coming to attack him, Sheridan inflicted terrible loss on the enemy. The fight was fierce and heavy. About 4 o'clock General Gilbert sent Mitchell's division to take part in the battle. With two brigades he drew near to Sheridan, covering his right. One of them under Colonel Carlin, of Illinois, joined the Eleventh Division in an offensive movement. On that side the enemy was thrown back beyond Chaplin's Creek. The

Federals passed through the village, where they captured a body of prisoners. Mitchell's third brigade had gone to the extreme left to McCook's relief, and for two hours it made head almost alone against the attack of the Confederates, slowly retiring before them, but with cruel sacrifices. Night came at last and put an end to one of the most sanguinary battles of the war, if we take into account the forces engaged. The Federal brigades, numbering 25,000 men, lost 4,000. The three divisions which had alone sustained all the brunt of the battle, about 15,000, had left on the field of Perryville, 510 killed, 2,635 wounded, and 251 prisoners-more than one-third of their effective force.

The Comte de Paris, from whose work most of these details are drawn, considers the battle a drawn one, though acknowledging it destroyed the hope of occupying Kentucky. It destroyed the reputation as a soldier of General Buell, who was not on the field till sundown, while it added laurels to McCook, Rousseau, Mitchell, and especially to Sheridan, whose superb resistance to Buckner's troops, flushed with apparent victory, turned the fate of the day into the victory it certainly was. Many anecdotes are told of Sheridan personally in connection with this fight, but the following will suffice: General Gilbert, not understanding something which he saw through his glass, sent a staff officer to find out what it was. When Sheridan was asked what the movement meant, he said: "I have driven the enemy before me, and whipped them like h-1, and that battery," pointing to a battery of the enemy which was firing on General McCook's troops, "I'll silence it in five minutes." He did it.

One of the stirring episodes of the day was the rescue of a battery commanded by Captain Loomis, and belonging to Rousseau's division. It was exposed and in danger from the advance of Buckner's forces. The long range ammunition was exhausted, and the Parrots were loaded with grape and used effectively at short range. When Rousseau was hardest pressed there was considerable danger of losing this battery, till Sheridan ordered up three regiments, who in their impetuous charge cleared the ground before them, and enabled the battery and hard pressed troops to fall back and re-form. Sheridan was everywhere during the fight, and exposed himself so much that he was reported killed. The battle made solid the reputation he had already won as a fighting trooper, and proved his ability to handle and move raw men under fire as well as to fight them effectually.

There was no breathing spell for Sheridan or any of the real fighters, as at once the army advanced towards Stone River.

CHAPTER VII.

FROM PERRYVILLE TO STONE RIVER.

SHERIDAN'S PLACE IN THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND-PREPARING FOR MURfreesboro'— SHERIDAN LEADS THE WAY-THE battle of sTONE RIVER — THE DEADLY WRESTLE WITH CHEATHAM COMMENDED for DISTINGUISHED

SERVICES.

"I HAVE possession of the ridge occupied by the enemy yesterday." This was Sheridan's characteristic dispatch the day after Perryville. It was addressed to his corps commander, Major-General Gilbert. That officer in his Perryville report says: "Brigadier-General Sheridan I commend to notice as an officer of much gallantry and of high professional ability. He held the key of our position with tenacity, and used the point to its utmost advantage."

To Sheridan the next two months were full of activity, leading up, as they did, to the notable battle of Stone River, at Murfreesboro', Ten

nessee.

Drawn battle though the Comte de Paris declares Perryville to have been, it was the Union forces that held the field and made the advance therefrom, while Bragg's Confederate army retreated rapidly south and eastward, until they reached the defensible lines of Stone River. General Buell found it convenient to return to Louisville, after arrival at which post he was not again restored to active command. His conduct of the Perryville campaign was made the subject of searching inquiry by a military commission, whose verdict was in the main adverse to that general. The campaign and its character still remains the subject of dispute by military critics. Major-General George H. Thomas was in command until October 30th, moving the main body of the Union forces toward Nashville. At that date General Rosecrans, who had just successfully fought the second battle of Corinth, was placed in control of the Buell army, still known to history as the Army of the Cumberland. Rosecrans was at Louisville on the 1st of November, and immediately assumed command, arriving at Bowling

Green on the same day. A considerable Confederate force was at Murfreesboro', having arrived there on the 27th inst., Breckenridge being in immediate command, with 8,000 men. Forrest had in the valley a poorly equipped cavalry force of over five thousand. An attack was made on Nashville and repulsed on the 6th of November. The entire rebel force did not then exceed thirty thousand in and about Murfreesboro'. At that place forty-five guns were also concentrated. Later Breckenridge was joined by the divisions under Cheatham and Buckner. General Kirby Smith held Cumberland Gap with over twelve thousand men. Bragg himself was at Tullahoma, half way between Nashville and Chattanooga. General Joseph E. Johnston, reported to be in command, was, at the date given, in feeble health at Chattanooga. Our scouts and spies reported that Bragg acknowledged to receiving only 1,500 recruits in Kentucky. Van Dorn acknowledged in his report a loss of 13,000 officers and men, killed, wounded, and missing. Sterling Price was superseded, creating dissatisfaction among the southwest Confederate troops.

The direct pursuit of Bragg's scattering army was pressed from the 11th to the 22d of October by the army corps under Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden. Skirmishes were had at Danville, Harrodsburg, Stanford, Lancaster, Mountain Gap, Crab Orchard, near Mount Vernon, Camp Wildcat, at Nelson and Pitman's Cross-roads, and on the Madison road. The enemy retired through Cumberland Gap and the pursuit was discontinued at Richmond, Kentucky, on the 21st of October.

The troops of the corps which at Perryville had been under the command of General C. C. Gilbert, was under the arrangements made by the new commander, General Rosecrans, transferred to Major-General Alexander McCook, the senior member of the famous fighting family of that name, whose youngest member, Colonel Dan McCook, commanded a brigade under Sheridan at Perryville. Our little brigadier was placed in command of the Third Division of the army, in the Twentieth Corps, which was strengthened and made more efficient. The records of the service are not, as during the last year of the Civil War, full of Sheridan's movements, but they tell of his progress by the story of skirmish and charge, of rifle volley and battery roar, of stubborn fighting and bayonet's flash. Wherever there was work to do, an enemy to feel, or a force to be repulsed, Sheridan was ordered to the front. When general battle was had and great armies interlocked in herculean struggle, Sheridan is reported as stubbornly fighting, heroically resisting

great odds, holding the key of our position with Irish tenacity, or advancing on the kibes of victory with that elan and dash that at last made him renowned. As Grant said of Sheridan on one occasion, "When I wanted that man, he was sure to be there." Sheridan, on being told of this, said very coolly, "Well, a fellow ought to be where he is expected."

Carrying the general outlines of this campaign in mind, the reader must remember that the Union policy involved, first, the defense and safety of Nashville, and second, an advance on Chattanooga, a movement which must be made in order to clear the Tennessee Valley and bring the fighting to the gates of Georgia, thus beginning the linking of our eastern and central armies together. The rebel policy had already proved unsuccessful. It aimed to divide the Union line of action between the Appalachian Range and the Mississippi, by an attack on the centre, to end in the occupation of Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee. So far it had but reaped disaster. The two objectives, then, were Nashville, as sought by the rebels, and Chattanooga, as advanced upon by the Union forces. Bragg claimed to have won a victory at Perryville. His previous operations, with the expectations whereon they were based, proved, however, a complete failure. He was badly punished in having Polk's army driven back, but declared that he left his enemy in a worse condition. This was not true. Bragg himself retired to Tullahoma, and only slowly did the Confederate military authorities realize that General Rosecrans was making ready for a winter battle. Indeed, it is doubtful if they conceived that to be the case until after they were defeated and driven back at Stone River. General Rosecrans wisely concentrated his effective army about Nashville. He was fortunate first, in having Buell's troops to handle, and next, in securing a large number of recruits and new regiments to fill all gaps. The concentration at Nashville enabled the easy repulse of all Confederate movements on that point. By means of the railroad and the Cumberland River, a vast amount of supplies were gathered, transported, and stored within the next forty days following the battle of Perryville.

Some skirmishing and brief conflicts marked the movements of Sheridan's division between the 10th of October when he moved out on the Chaplin Hills, and his movements in the advance on the 26th of December, along the Murfreesboro' and other pikes, toward the Stone River battle-field. On the 11th of October Sheridan's command had a sharp encounter at Crab Orchard, Kentucky. From that