General Nelson's Scout

by Byron A. Dunn

The girl held up her hands in dismay. "And I told him——" She stopped suddenly.

"Told him what?" demanded Conway.

"Oh! nothing, nothing; only what a good fellow you were."

The captain looked at her sharply, and said: "It is well you gave away no secrets."

Fred made his way back to camp with a thankful heart. He told Colonel Garrard of the intended attack, and then started back for the headquarters of General Thomas. It was a long and hard ride, and it was well in the small hours of the night when he arrived. The general was aroused and the news of the expected attack told. He quietly wrote a couple of orders, and went back to his bed. One order was to General Schoepf to at once march his brigade to the relief of Colonel Garrard at Rock Castle. The other was sent to Colonel Connell at Big Hill to move his regiment to Rock Castle, instead of advancing toward London as ordered.

Both orders were obeyed, and both commands were in position on the 20th. General Zollicoffer made his expected attack on the 21st, and was easily repulsed. The battle was a small one; nothing but a skirmish it would have been called afterwards; but to the soldiers engaged at that time, it looked like a big thing. It greatly encouraged the Federal soldiers, and correspondingly depressed the soldiers of Zollicoffer's army.

Fred got back to Rock Castle in time to see the battle. It was his first sight of dead and wounded soldiers. And as he looked on the faces of the dead, their sightless eyes upturned to heaven, and the groans of the wounded sounding in his ears, he turned sick at heart, and wondered why men created in the image of God would try to kill and maim each other. And yet, a few moments before, he himself was wild with the excitement of battle, and could scarcely be restrained from rushing into it.

The next day the army advanced, and passed the place where Fred met with his adventure, and he thought he would make another visit to Miss Alice Johnson. But that young lady gave him a cold reception. She called him a "miserable, sneaking Yankee," and turned her back on him in disgust. He didn't hear the last of his call on Miss Johnson.

Fred pointed out the place where his horse had leaped the fence, and officers and men were astonished, and Prince became as much a subject of praise as his rider. It was a common saying among the soldiers as he rode by, "There goes the smartest boy and best horse in Kentucky."

When Fred returned to Camp Dick Robinson, he found a letter awaiting him from General Nelson. The general was making a campaign against a portion of the command of General Humphrey Marshall in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and wrote that if Fred could possibly come to him to do so.