went on many errands or walked about in the course of his
leisure hours with his friends, watched with interest the growth of a
great army. There were more men here upon the banks of the Tennessee
than he had seen at Bull Run. They were gathered full forty thousand
strong, and General Buell's army also, he learned, had been put under
command of General Grant and was advancing from Nashville to join him.

Dick also observed with extreme interest the ground upon which they were
encamped and the country surrounding it. There was the deep Tennessee,
still swollen by spring rains, upon the left bank of which they lay,
with the stream protecting one flank. In the river were some of the
gunboats which had been of such value to Grant. All about them was
rough, hilly country, almost wholly covered with brushwood and tall
forest. There were three deep creeks, given significant names by the
pioneers. Lick Creek flowed to the south of them into the Tennessee,
and Owl Creek to the north sought the same destination. A third, Snake
Creek, was lined with deep and impassable swamps to its very junction
with the river.

Some roads of the usual frontier type ran through this region, and at a
point within the Northern lines stood a little primitive log church
that they called Shiloh. It was of the kind that the pioneers built
everywhere as they moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Shiloh
belonged to a little body of Methodists. Dick went into it more than
once. There was no pastor and no congregation now, but the little church
was not molested. He sat more than once on an uncompromising wooden
bench, and looked out through a window, from which the shutter was gone,
at the forest and the army.

Sitting here in this primitive house of worship, he would feel a certain
sadness. It seemed strange that a great army, whose purpose was to
destroy other armies, should be encamped around a building erected in
the cause of the Prince of Peace. The mighty and terrible nature of the
war was borne in upon him more fully than ever.

But optimism was supreme among the soldiers. They had achieved the great
victory of Donelson in the face of odds that had seemed impossible. They
could defeat all the Southern forces that lay between them and the Gulf.
The generals shared their confidence. They did not fortify their camp.
They had not come that far South to fight defensive battles. It was
their place to attack and that of the men in gray to defend. The