A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty light in front, from shoulder to breast—a rock wall, tipped with steel swept crushingly forward over the trenches over the breastworks.
Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned face stopped the old warrior. Down from his horse he came with a weak, hysterical sob.
“O Tom—Tom, I might have known it was you—my gallant, noble boy—my Irish Gray!”
He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on with his men.
It was just midnight.
“At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance with orders from the commanding Generals,” writes General J. D. Cox in his official report, “I withdrew my command to the north bank of the river.”
“The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night,” wrote General Hood, “when the enemy retreated rapidly on Nashville, leaving the dead and wounded in our hands. We captured about a thousand prisoners and several stands of colors.”
Was this a coincidence—or as some think—did the boys in blue retreat before they would fire on an old Continental and the spirit of '76?
An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired old man on a superb horse back to headquarters, and as the rider's head sank on his breast he said:
“Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now but the curse of it.”