d. So continuous was the
play of flame around the entire breastwork that it looked to the
general at headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at
intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher where the
batteries were ablaze.

In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia turnpike
and near the Carter House, with abatis in front, the strongest of the
batteries had been placed. It mowed down everything in front. Seeing
it, General Hood turned to General Travis and said: "General, my
compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I desire that battery
at his hands."

The old man wheeled and was gone. In a moment, it seemed, the black
smoke of battle engulfed him. Cleburne's command was just in front of
the old gin house, forming for another charge. The dead lay in heaps
in front. They almost filled the ditch around the breastworks. But
the command, terribly cut to pieces, was forming as coolly as if on
dress parade. Above them floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep
blue on which was a crescent moon and stars. It was Cleburne's battle
flag and well the enemy knew it. They had seen and felt it at Shiloh,
Murfreesboro, Ringgold Gap, Atlanta. "I tip my hat to that flag,"
said General Sherman years after the war. "Whenever my men saw it
they knew it meant fight."

As the old man rode up, the division charged. Carried away in the
excitement he charged with them, guiding his horse by the flashes of
the guns. As they rushed on the breastworks a gray figure on a
chestnut horse rode diagonally across the front of the moving column
at the enemy's gun. The horse went down within fifty yards of the
breastwork. The rider arose, waved his sword and led his men on foot
to the very ramparts. Then he staggered and fell, pierced with a
dozen minie balls. It was Cleburne, the peerless field-marshal of
confederate brigade commanders; the genius to infantry as Forrest was
to cavalry. His corps was swept back by the terrible fire, nearly
half of them dead or wounded.

Ten minutes afterwards General Travis stood before General Hood.

"General Cleburne is dead, General"--was all he said. Hood did not
turn his head.

"My compliments to General Adams," he said, "and tell him I ask that
battery at his hands."

Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he rode into the black
night and the blacker smoke of battle.

General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division. As the aged
courier rode up, Adams w