d the Union breastworks,
part of which was a formidable stone wall. And now came the orders for
their own section to press in. They pushed, hard and heavy, while swirls
of blue cavalry fought, broke, re-formed to meet their advance, and
broke again. They routed out pockets of blue infantry, sending some
pelting back toward the Harpeth.

A wave of retreating Yankees crossed the shallow river. Forrest's men
dismounted to fight and took the stream on foot, the icy water splashing
high. It was wild and tough, the slam of man meeting man. Drew wrested a
guidon from the hold of a blue-coated trooper as Hannibal smashed into
the other's mount with bared teeth and pawing hoofs. Waving the trophy
over his head and yelling, he pounded on at a knot of determined
infantry, aware that he was leading others from Buford's still-mounted
headquarter's company, and that they were going to ride right over the
Yankee soldiers. Men threw away muskets and rifles, raised empty hands,
scattered in frantic leaps from that charge.

Then they were rounding up their blue-coated prisoners and Drew, the
pole of the captured guidon braced in the crook of his elbow as he
reloaded his revolver, realized that the shadows were thickening, that
the day was almost gone.

"Rennie!" Still holding the guidon, Drew obeyed the beckoning hand of
one of the General's aides. He put Hannibal to a rocking gallop to come
up with the officer.

"Withdrawin'--behind the river. Pass the word to gather in!"

Drew cantered back to wave in Kirby, Boyd, and the others who had made
that charge with him. It was retreat again, but they did not know then
that Franklin had cost them Hood's big gamble. Forty-five hundred men
swept out of the gray forces--killed, wounded, missing, prisoners. Five
irreplaceable generals were dead; six more, wounded or captured. The
Army of the Tennessee was slashed, badly torn ... but it was not yet
destroyed.

That night the cavalry was on the march, driven by Forrest's tireless
energy. They hit skirmishers at a garrisoned crossroads, using Morton's
field batteries to cut them a free path. And through the bitter days of
early December they continued to show their teeth to some purpose.

Blockhouses along the railroads and along the Cumberland were taken,
with Murfreesboro their goal. Life was a constant alert, a plugging away
of weary men, worn-out horses, bogged-down wagons, relieved now and then
from the morass of exhaustion by sharp spur