"Oh! you are fishing for compliments," she returned archly, "But I tell you, sir, that I have my eye upon you. Did you all notice how the Princess, Feodora, and a lot more of those Russian ladies cried over him when we were parting from them?" and she shook her finger at him from the lower end of the table, and tried so hard to look jealous and mad, and made so dismal a failure of it, that they all laughed heartily.
And so they merrily chatted through the meal. The men then resorted to the smoking-room, and when all had lighted their cigars or pipes, Fred asked:
"Which of the battles of the war of the great Rebellion do you consider to have been the hardest fought, Doctor Jones?"
"Chickamauga is conceded by the majority of our historians to have been the most savagely contested of the great battles of the war. Something near forty per cent of the men engaged were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner."
"Were you in that battle, Doctor?"
"I was."
"I would be glad if you would tell us about it; that is, I mean, your own personal experiences."
"Well," returned Dr. Jones, taking a look out of the window by which he sat, "we are spinning along at a rattling gait toward Franz Joseph Land, and I don't know that we can do any better than tell war stories to pass away time.
"I believe I told you that I was fifteen years old when I enlisted. The battle of Chickamauga occurred September 19, and 20, 1863, one year after my enlistment, so that I was a lad of sixteen at the time of the battle. You cannot presume that a boy would have seen much that would be of historical value, where all was horrible roar of musketry, booming of cannon, confusion, and blood-curdling yells of charging battalions.
"The morning of September 19, 1863, dawned upon us beautiful and bright. I shall never forget that lovely morning. Throughout the rank and file of our army there was a feeling that we were upon the eve of a great battle; but we did not dream that the armies of Bragg and Longstreet had combined, and we were opposing from fifty-five thousand to seventy-five thousand men. But our confidence in our commander, General Rosecranz, was so great that we would have fought them just the same if we had known of the great odds against us.