d on their tattered
regimental banners, and whom Sherman proudly boasted were "the best
soldiers on earth." The courtly, idolized McPherson was their leader,
with such men as John A. Logan, T. E. G. Ransom, Frank P. Blair and P.
J. Osterhaus as lieutenants and subordinates.

There was the Army of the Cumberland, 60,000 strong, from which all
dross had been burned by the fierce fires of Shiloh, Perryville, Stone
River and Chickamauga; and the campaigns across two States. "The noblest
Roman of them all," grand old "Pap" Thomas, was in command, with Howard,
Stanley, Newton, Wood, Palmer, Davis, Joe Hooker, Williams and Geary as
his principal lieutenants.

And thither came--15,000 strong--all of the Army of the Ohio who could
be spared from garrisoning dearly-won Kentucky and East Tennessee. They
were men who had become inured to hunting their enemies down in mountain
fastnesses, and fighting them wherever they could be found. At their
head was Gen. J. M. Schofield, whom the Nation had come to know from his
administration of the troublous State of Missouri. Gens. Hovey, Hascall
and Cox were division commanders.

With what an air of conscious power; of evident mastery of all that
might confront them; of calm, unflinching determination for the
conflict, those men moved and acted. They felt themselves part of
a mighty machine, that had its work before it, and would move with
resistless force to perform the appointed task.

The men fell instinctively into their ranks in the companies. Without an
apparent effort the companies became regiments, the regiments quietly,
but with swift certainty, swung into their places in the brigade, and
the brigades massed up noiselessly into divisions and corps.

And while the 100,000 veterans were drilling, organizing and manuvering
the railroad was straining every one of its iron and steel tendons to
bring in food and ammunition to supply the mighty host, and provide a
store from which it could draw when it went forth upon its great errand.
There were 35,000 horses to be fed, in addition to the 100,000 veterans,
and so the baled hay made heaps that rivalled in size the foothills of
the mountains. The limitless cornfields of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
heaped up their golden harvests in other hillocks. Every mountain pass
was filled with interminable droves of slow-footed cattle, bringing
forward "army beef on the hoof." Boxes of ammunition and crackers, and
barrels of pork covered acres, a