from their earthworks, kept up their fire from behind rocks and trees, but everywhere gave way. Prisoners were taken in large squads, who were found to be men who were paroled at Vicksburg, and had not been exchanged, though they had been so told by their officers.

By two o'clock, the clouds and darkness on the mountain caused a cessation of the battle to some extent. To those below, the flashes of fire, the thunder of the artillery, the rolling clouds of smoke, recalled the descriptions given of Mount Sinai of old, when “the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." The loud cheers of our troops, sounding to their comrades in the valley to come from the skies, told that the height was won. By four o'clock, Hooker reported to Grant his success. At half-past five, Grant ordered Brig.Gen. Carlin of the Fourteenth Corps to cross Chattanooga Creek, and join Hooker on the left.

The rebels gradually withdrew to concentrate on Missionary Ridge; leaving twenty thousand rations, and camp-equipages for three brigades.

At six o'clock, Grant telegraphed in modest terms to Washington, "The fight to-day progressed favorably. Sherman carried the end of Missionary Ridge; and his right is now at the tunnel, and left at Chickamauga Creek. Troops from Lookout Valley carried the point of the mountain, and now hold the eastern point and slope high up. Hooker reports two thousand prisoners taken, besides which a small number have fallen into our hands from Missionary Ridge."

The President replied, "Your despatches as to fight

ing on Monday and Tuesday are here. Well done! Thanks to all. Remember Burnside."

By midnight the bugles were mute, the soldiers were sleeping, and the sentinels paced their weary round ; but there was no rest for their commander, who was sy despatching his orders for the next day's battle.

CHAPTER XX.

G

BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE.

RANT was not a general who issued orders for a

battle of two or three days' continuance, and then looked on to see it carried out, and was disconcerted and defeated if the programme was interfered with. He fought the battle, and issued orders as the battle developed. He fought his battles by military rules; but he applied the rules as the exigencies changed on the field. No two battles are alike; and

his staff said it was not his habit to discuss the details and muse over the evolutions of celebrated battles, and speculate on what might have been if this had been so, and that had been otherwise.

When the board was ready and the pieces placed, he played to win, as his own position and that of the enemy appeared to require. When the sun rose on the morning of the 25th, the whole scene was spread out like a map. At the extreme right, on the lofty summit of Lookout Mountain, the national flag was seen flying, having been raised by the Eighth Kentucky Volunteers. In front was Missionary Ridge, four hundred feet high, seven miles long, where the rebel hosts, numbering forty-five thousand men, were now united. In the centre, Bragg's headquarters were plainly seen; far off

on the left, Sherman's drums were heard on the crests he had won the afternoon before. Trees, houses, fences, had all been removed; and the field was clear for the day's great work.

Grant, with Thomas and some of his division generals, was on Orchard Knoll, the highest point of observation along the Union lines. Hooker had descended from Lookout Mountain, crossed the valley, and was at the south end of Missionary Ridge.

Grant's plan was to attack the enemy on both flanks until he was compelled to weaken his centre to support them; when the centre was to be broken, and the ridge carried.

The eminence which Sherman had carried was not continuous with the whole ridge; but ravines and gorges intervened, and each was strongly fortified and defended, those behind rising above those in front, and affording a chance for the rebel artillery to play upon our advancing columns with great effect. Sherman had been in his saddle since daylight. It was now sunrise. The men were quiet: some of them were writing little notes in their diaries, and replacing them in their pockets, thinking, perhaps, they would, before night, be read by other eyes than theirs. The bugles sound the advance; and Gen. Corse, Gen. Morgan L. Smith, and Col. Smith, with their brigades, move on. The Fortieth Illinois, and the Twentieth and Forty-sixth Ohio, march down the slope, and up to within eighty yards of the rebel intrenchments. The fighting is very severe; hand to hand it is maintained, now advancing, and now receding a little. The fire of the rebel artillery is murderous with grape and canister; the blood

flows in torrents: our soldiers charged up to within pistol-shot of the rebel works; but, in the main, each party held its position. But Sherman's attack threatens Bragg's rear, and must be repulsed, or all is lost. He orders first one column and then another from his centre to repel Sherman; but Sherman is not to be driven off, if he cannot advance against great odds. Still more troops move off to the left of Bragg.

Grant saw all this with eagle eye as he watched the movements of the enemy. Thomas's four divisions, who were with him in the centre, had been impatiently waiting all day for orders to "go in ;" and now the moment had come.

Sheridan (then fighting for the first time under Grant's eye), Johnson, Baird, and Wood were ordered to advance to the enemy's rifle-pits, clear them, then re-form, and ascend the ridge. It was about nine hundred yards to the rebel rifle-pits; and there was not an inch of the ground that was not swept by the artillery from the ridge.

But the men moved steadily without firing a gun, then dashed on at the double-quick; and the rifle-pits were carried. Some of the rebels threw themselves down and surrendered as the line approached; others fled up the hill. Sheridan said he "happened to be in advance ;" and, as he looked back at the twenty thousand gleaming bayonets, he was impressed by the sight of their terrible power. The rebels could not resist the effect on their imagination; and many surrendered at once. A thousand prisoners were captured, and hurried to the rear. The men could not now be halted to re-form as had been agreed; but along the