Hair-trigger Overton leads the General back to their inn. As the pair journey through the poplar wood, he asks:
“What was that you put in your mouth?”
“It was a bullet,” returns the General; “I placed it between my teeth. By setting my jaws firmly upon it I make my hand as steady as a church.”
As the General says this, he gives that steadying pellet of lead to hair-trigger Overton, who looks it over curiously. It has been crushed between the clenched teeth of the General until now it is as flat and thin as a two-bit piece. As the two approach the tavern they come upon a negress churning butter, and the General pauses to drink a quart of milk.
Once in his room, hair-trigger Overton pulls off the General's boot, which is full of blood.
“Not there!” says the General. “His bullet found me here”; and he throws open the black coat.
Dead-shot Dickinson's aim was better than his surmise. He struck that indicated third button; but, thanks to the strategy of hair-trigger Overton which prompted the voluminous coat, the button did not cover the General's heart. The deceived bullet has only broken two ribs and grazed the breastbone.
The surgeon is called; the wound is dressed and bandaged. He describes it as serious, and shakes his head.
“Still,” he observes, “you are more fortunate than Mr. Dickinson. He cannot live an hour.” As the man of probe and forceps is about to retire the General detains him.
“You are not to speak of my wound until we are back in Nashville.”