atre.

Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably situated
for defense, surrounded as it was on three sides by the bend of a
small river, the further banks of which were of solid rocks rising
above the town. On the highest of these bluffs--Roper's Knob--across
and behind the town, directly overlooking it and grimly facing Hood's
army two miles away, was a federal fort capped with mighty guns,
ready to hurl their shells over the town at the gray lines beyond.
From the high ridge where Hood's army stood the ground gradually
rolled to the river. A railroad ran through a valley in the ridge to
the right of the Confederates, spun along on the banks of the river
past the town and crossed it in the heart of the bend to the left of
the federal fort. From that railroad on the Confederate right, in
front and clear around the town, past an old gin house which stood
out clear and distinct in the November sunlight--on past the Carter
House, to the extreme left bend of the river on the left--in short,
from river to river again and entirely inclosing the town and facing
the enemy--ran the newly made and hastily thrown-up breastworks of
the federal army, the men rested and ready for battle.

There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the town of
Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a large linden tree, now
showing the effects of age. It was half-past three o'clock in the
afternoon, when General Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the
stump of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the pommel of
his saddle, drew out his field glasses and sat looking for a long
time across the valley at the enemy's position.

Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the town, amid the
guns of the fort, also with field glass in hand anxiously watching
the confederates, stood the federal general. A sharp-shooter in
either line could have killed the commanding general in the other.
And now that prophesying silence which always seems to precede a
battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness it
seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the death-watch of
eternity. But presently it was broken by the soft strains of music
which floated up from the town below. It was the federal band playing
"Just Before The Battle, Mother."

The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in the valley
listened, and then each one mentally followed the tune with silent
words, and not without a bit of moistur