"They came here," said the woman, "and found my husband sick in bed, so sick he could not raise a finger to help himself. They accused him of harboring his brother, and of furnishing information, and said that they had come to hang him, but as he was sick they would shoot him. And then," sobbed the woman, "notwithstanding our prayers, they shot him before our eyes. Oh, it was dreadful!" and the stricken wife broke completely down, and the daughters hung over the body of their murdered father, weeping as if their hearts would break.
Fred was deeply moved. He told the sobbing women that he would at once report the case, and have her husband's brother come out with his company. "We will also," said Fred, "leave the bodies of our two dead comrades here. If you wish, I will send a chaplain, that all may have Christian burial. And, my poor woman, your wrongs have been fearfully avenged. Of the nine men in the party that murdered your husband, but one escaped. The rest are dead or terribly wounded."
"Thank God! thank God!" said the women, raising their streaming eyes to heaven. Even the presence of death did not take away their desire for revenge. Such is poor human nature, even in gentle woman.
"War makes demons of us all," thought Fred.
The story of that fight was long a theme around the camp fire, and the three soldiers who survived never tired of telling it. As for Fred, he spoke of it with reluctance, and could not think of it without a shudder. Fifteen men never engaged in a bloodier conflict, even on the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky.
CHAPTER XIII. THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS.
General Thomas sat in his headquarters at Lebanon looking over some dispatches which Fred had just brought from General Schoepf at Somerset. His face wore a look of anxiety as he read, for the dispatches told him that General Zollicoffer had crossed to the north side of the Cumberland river and was fortifying his camp at Beech Grove.