Cleburne moved. That night, the night of the twenty-third, he spent immediately behind Missionary Ridge. With the first light he began to construct defences. It was known now that in great force Grant had crossed the Tennessee, both above and below Chickamauga. It was known that the great blue army, Grant with Sherman and Hooker, had burst from Chattanooga like a stream in freshet; the dark blue waves were seen wherever the fog parted. They coloured all the lowland; they lifted themselves toward the heights. Already the waves had taken Lookout; already they were lapping against the foot of Missionary. Cleburne held the hollow ground on the right of Missionary, near the tunnel of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. His orders were to hold this right at all hazards. Cleburne obeyed. There was a detached ridge which he wished to gain before the blue, now rapidly advancing, should gain it. He sent Smith’s Texas brigade, but the blue had greatly the start. When the Texans reached the foot of the ridge, they were fired upon from the top. Smith, turned by his right flank, climbed Missionary Ridge and took position upon its crest.
Below, in the hollow ground stretching toward the Chickamauga, Cleburne disposed the remainder of his troops. Hardee, experienced, able, stanch, came and approved. They burned a bridge across the Chickamauga. Dark was now at hand. The fog was disappearing, but the flames from the burning bridge had a curious, blurred, yellow, heatless effect. An aide came up with news.
“They’ve overrun Lookout, sir. Our men there have come over to Missionary.”
“What loss?”
“I don’t know, sir. Some one said they came like driftwood. I know that there’s a flood gaining on us.”
“Where there’s a flood,” said Cleburne, “thank the Saints, there’s usually an Ark! Set the axes to work, Major. We’re going to run a breastwork along here.”
There was that night an eclipse of the moon. The men who were making the breastwork stopped their work when the blackness began to steal across. They watched it with a curious look upon their lifted faces. “That thar moon,” said a man,—“that thar moon is the Confederacy, and that thar thing that’s stealing across it—that thar thing’s the End!”
“That ain’t the kind of talk—”
“Yes, it is the kind of talk! When you’ve come to the End, I want to know it. I ain’t a-going to stop building breastworks and I ain’t a-going to stop biting cartridges, but I want to know it. I want to be able to point my finger and say, ‘Thar’s the End.’”
The black moved farther upon the silver shield. All the soldiers rested on their axes and looked upon it. “When the Confederacy ends I want to end, too,—right then and thar and hand in hand! But the Confederacy ain’t going to end. I reckon we’ve given it enough blood to keep it going!”