in those piles of goods. Warehouses
blazed. By nightfall for a mile upriver and down they faced a solid
sheet of fire, and they smelled the tantalizing odor of burning bacon,
coffee, sugar, and saw blue rivers of blazing liquid running free.

"I still say it's a mighty shame, all that goin' to waste," commented
Kirby sadly.

"Well, anyway it ain't goin' into the bellies of Sherman's men," Drew
replied.

The Confederate force was already starting withdrawal, battery by
battery, as the wasteland of the fire lighted them on their way. And now
the Yankee gunboats were burning with explosions of shells, fired by
their own crews lest they fall into Rebel hands. It was a wild scene,
giving the command plenty of light by which to fall back into the
country they still dominated. The reduction of the depot was a complete
success.

Scouts stayed with the rear guard this time, so it was that Drew saw
again those two who had so carefully picked the gun stands only
twenty-four hours before. General Forrest and his battery commander came
down once more to survey the desolation those guns had left as a
smoking, stinking scar.

Drew heard the slow, reflective words the General spoke:

"John, if you were given enough guns, and I had me enough men, we could
whip old Sherm clean off the face of the earth!"

And then the scout caught Kirby's whisper of assent to that. "The old
man ain't foolin'; he could jus' do it!"

"Maybe he could," Drew agreed. He wished fiercely that Morton did have
his guns and Forrest all the men who had been wasted, who had melted
away from his ranks--or were buried. A man had to have tools before he
could build, but their tools were getting mighty few, mighty old,
and.... He tried to close his mind to that line of thought. They were on
the move again, and Forrest had certainly proven here that though
Atlanta might be gone, there was still an effective Confederate Army in
the field, ready and able to twist the tail of any Yankee!

11

_The Road to Nashville_

Sleet drove at the earth with an oblique, knife-edged whip. The
half-ice, half-rain struck under water-logged hat brims, found the neck
opening where the body covering, improvised from a square of
appropriated Yankee oilcloth, lay about the shoulders.

"I'm thinkin' we sure have struck a stream lengthwise." Kirby's Tejano
crowded up beside Hannibal. "Can't otherwise be so many bog holes in any
stretch of country. An' if we ever do come a