inutes, when General
Nelson rode by toward headquarters, down in the busiest part of the
town, aides and orderlies following upon the gallop. Presently came
orders:

'Three days' rations in haversacks, strike tents, and pack up. Be ready
to move at a moment's notice. They are fighting up at the Landing.'

There was no need for further urging. By ten o'clock every disposition
for the march had been completed. Nearly three long hours more we waited
with feverish anxiety for the final command to start, while the roar of
that deathly strife fell distantly upon our ears almost without
intermission, and a hundred wild rumors swept through the camp. General
Grant had gone up the river on a gunboat soon after the cannonading
began. It was not long after midday when we struck tents, were furnished
with a new supply of cartridges and caps for our Enfields, and waited
several minutes longer. At length, however, the column formed, and,
though still without orders, except those which its immediate commander
had assumed the responsibility to give, the Fourth division was on the
march for Shiloh. The Tenth brigade had, as usual, the advance, and, in
our regular turn, the Sixth came the third regiment in the column. We
had just cleared the camping grounds, I well remember, when General
Nelson rode leisurely down the line, his eye taking note with the quiet
glance of the real soldier of every minutia of equipments and appearance
generally. Some natures seem to find in antagonism and conflict their
native element, their chief good--yet more, almost as much a necessity
of their moral organism as to their animal being is the air they
breathe. Such a nature was Nelson's. His face to-day wore that
characteristic expression by which every man of his command learned to
graduate his expectation of an action; it was the very picture of
satisfaction and good humor. He wheeled his horse half around as the
rear of our brigade passed him, and a blander tone of command I never
heard than when, in his rapid, authoritative manner, he rang out:

'Now, gentlemen, keep the column well closed up!' and passed on toward
the next brigade.

Gentlemen! how oddly the title comes to sound in the ears of a soldier!

From Savannah to the Tennessee, directly opposite Pittsburg Landing, is,
by the course we took, perhaps ten miles. The route was only a narrow
wagon-path through the woods and bottoms bordering the river, and the
wisdom was soon apparent which had