those whom he knew would be likely to bring him to an account
for his villany.

"I don't intend to be taken prisoner," said Pillow.

"What will you do, gentlemen?" Buckner asked.

"I mean to escape, and take my Virginia brigade with me, if I can. I
shall turn over the command to General Pillow. I have a right to escape
if I can, but I haven't any right to order the entire army to make a
hopeless fight," said Floyd.

"If you surrender it to me, I shall turn it over to General Buckner,"
said General Pillow, who was also disposed to shirk responsibility and
desert the men whom he had induced to vote to secede from the Union and
take up arms against their country.

"If the command comes into my hands, I shall deem it my duty to
surrender it. I shall not call upon the troops to make a useless
sacrifice of life, and I will not desert the men who have fought so
nobly," Buckner replied, with a bitterness which made Floyd and Pillow
wince.

It was past midnight. The council broke up. The brigade and regimental
officers were astonished at the result. Some of them broke out into
horrid cursing and swearing at Floyd and Pillow.

"It is mean!" "It is cowardly!" "Floyd always was a rascal."

"We are betrayed!" "There is treachery!" said they.

"It is a mean trick for an officer to desert his men. If my troops are
to be surrendered, I shall stick by them," said Major Brown.

"I denounce Pillow as a coward, and if I ever meet him, I'll shoot him
as quick as I would a dog," said Major McLain, red with rage.

Floyd gave out that he was going to join Colonel Forrest, who commanded
the cavalry, and thus cut his way out; but there were two or three small
steamboats at the Dover landing. He and General Pillow jumped on board
one of them, and then secretly marched a portion of the Virginia brigade
on board. Other soldiers saw what was going on, that they were being
deserted. They became frantic with terror and rage. They rushed on
board, crowding every part of the boat.

"Cut loose!" shouted Floyd to the captain. The boats swung into the
stream and moved up the river, leaving thousands of infuriated soldiers
on the landing. So the man who had stolen the public property, and who
did all he could to bring on the war, who induced thousands of poor,
ignorant men to take up arms, deserted his post, stole away in the
darkness, and left them to their fate.

General Buckner immediately wrote a letter to General Grant, asking for
an a