CHAPTER I

The scene was a striking one. It was night. Never had the Mississippi
presented a more remarkable appearance. Broad bayous, swollen beyond our
powers of description, swirled to and fro in the darkness under trees
garlanded with Spanish moss. All moss other than Spanish had been swept
away by the angry flood of the river.

Eggleston Lee Carey Randolph, a young Virginian, captain of the ----th
company of the ----th regiment of ----'s brigade--even this is more than
we ought to say, and is hard to pronounce--attached to the Army of the
Tennessee, struggled in vain with the swollen waters. At times he sank.
At other times he went up.

In the intervals he wondered whether it would ever be possible for him
to rejoin the particular platoon of the particular regiment to which he
belonged, and of which's whereabouts (not having the volume of the army
record at hand) he was in ignorance. In the intervals, also, he
reflected on his past life to a sufficient extent to give the reader a
more or less workable idea as to who and to what he was. His father, the
old grey-haired Virginian aristocrat, he could see him still. "Take this
sword, Eggleston," he had said, "use it for the State; never for
anything else: don't cut string with it or open tin cans. Never sheathe
it till the soil of Virginia is free. Keep it bright, my boy: oil it
every now and then, and you'll find it an A 1 sword."

Did Eggleston think, too, in his dire peril of another--younger than his
father and fairer? Necessarily, he did. "Go, Eggleston!" she had
exclaimed, as they said farewell under the portico of his father's house
where she was visiting, "it is your duty. But mine lies elsewhere. I
cannot forget that I am a Northern girl. I must return at once to my
people in Pennsylvania. Oh, Egg, when will this cruel war end?"

So had the lovers parted.

Meanwhile--while Eggleston is going up and down for the third time,
which is of course the last--suppose we leave him, and turn to consider
the general position of the Confederacy. All right: suppose we do.

CHAPTER II

At this date the Confederate Army of the Tennessee was extended in a
line with its right resting on the Tennessee and its left resting on the
Mississippi. Its rear rested on the rugged stone hills of the Chickasaba
range, while its front rested on the marshes and bayous of the Yazoo.
Having thus--as far as we understand military matters--both its flanks
covered and