“My lan’! Missie Berry!” she exclaimed. “Ain’ I de lucky nigger ter cum right to dis tent! I’se bin all day a-gettin’ har!”
“Oh, Lily!” For a moment Berry clung silently to the faithful girl who had braved every danger to reach her young mistress; and then quickly told the story of her discovery of the Confederates in Shiloh woods. “And now I want to go home. We’ll start this minute!” she exclaimed eagerly.
“We cyan’t, Missie Berry! Dar’s milluns ob men a-fightin’ out dar! An’ lissen ter dat rain, Missie Berry! If we wusn’t killed by guns we’d be droun’d daid! We shu’ wu’d, Missie Berry. An’ yo’ ma and pa dey knows I’ll tek keer ob yo’,” Lily concluded, and Berry at last agreed not to attempt to start for home until the next morning. Lily curled up on the floor beside the cot where Berry lay; and, in spite of storm and the crashing sound of guns, the girls were soon fast asleep.
On Monday Lily was awake at an early hour, and left the camp to skirmish for food. It was too serious a moment in the great battle for Colonel Peabody to remember the little Yankee girl in his tent, but Lily managed to secure a quantity of hard biscuit and refilled the water jug. “We kin go home ter-night, I reckon,” she assured Berry, who was now rested and eager to leave the tent.
Early that afternoon the sound of cheers echoed along the plateau, and Berry and Lily ventured to peer from the tent. A soldier rushed past them shouting: “Beauregard’s men are retreating. The Battle of Shiloh is over!”
“Praise de Lawd!” said Lily; “an’ I hopes dis ends de noise.”
By four o’clock the last shot had been fired, and the Union generals found that in the two days’ battle 15,000 Union soldiers had been killed or taken prisoners by the enemy, while the Confederate loss was not over 10,699 men.
In spite of Berry’s pleading Lily resolutely refused to start for home until night.
“’Tain’ safe, Missie Berry! Jes’ wait!” she insisted; and Berry at last agreed.
It was six o’clock when the flap to the tent was drawn back and Colonel Peabody, his arm in a sling and a bandage about his head, stood smiling in the doorway.