ader
guessed in a moment what all this meant, and with his native energy
prepared for a sharp pursuit. In all haste he picked out a suitable
force, had several days' rations cooked for the men and corn gathered
for the horses, and shortly after midnight was on the road, leaving what
men he could spare to keep Dodge busy and prevent pursuit. His command
was twelve hundred strong, the most of them veterans whose metal had
been tried on many a hard-fought field, and who were ready to follow
their daring leader to the death, reckless and hardy "irregulars,"
brought up from childhood to the use of horses and arms, the sturdy sons
of the back country.

Streight was now in the ugly mountain country through which his route
lay, and was advancing up Sand Mountain by a narrow, stony, winding
road. He had two days the start of his pursuer, but with such headlong
speed did Forrest ride, that at dawn on the 30th, when the Federals were
well up the mountain, the boom of a cannon gave them the startling
notice that an enemy was in pursuit. Forrest had pushed onward at his
usual killing pace, barely drawing rein until Streight's camp-fires came
in sight, when his men lay down by their horses for a night's rest.

Captain William Forrest, a brother of the general, had been sent ahead
to reconnoitre, and in the early morning was advised of the near
presence of the enemy by as awful a noise as human ears could well bear,
the concentrated breakfast bray of fifteen hundred hungry mules.

The cannon-shot which had warned Colonel Streight that an enemy was
near, was followed by the yell of Captain Forrest's wild troopers, as
they charged hotly up the road. Their recklessness was to be severely
punished, for as they came headlong onward a volley was poured into them
from a ridge beside the road. Their shrewd opponent had formed an
ambuscade, into which they blindly rode, with the result that Captain
Forrest fell from his horse with a crushed thigh-bone, and many of his
men and horses were killed and wounded before they could get out of the
trap into which they had ridden.

The attack was followed up by Forrest's whole force. Edmonson's men,
dismounted, advanced within a hundred yards of the Federal line, Roddy
and Julian rode recklessly forward in advance, and Forrest's escort and
scouts occupied the left. It was a precipitous movement, which
encountered a sudden and sharp reverse, nearly the whole line being met
with a murderous fire and d