The sleet was
sheathing their bodies in crystal shrouds now. No flag of truce was
allowed and the wounded lay freezing and dying where they fell. He could
hear the stronger ones still crying for help. Their long piteous moans
rang above the howl of the wind through the breaking boughs of the
trees.
It was hideous. Why didn't they rescue those men? Why didn't they
proclaim a truce to bury the dead and save the wounded? Grant must be a
fiend! Far off on the river another black smudge was seen in the sky.
More reenforcements were coming.
The three Confederate generals suddenly waked with a shock to realize
that their foe had landed a second army, cutting their communications
with Nashville.
A council of war was hastily called on the night of the fourteenth. It
was a discordant aggregation. Floyd, the former Secretary of War in
Buchanan's administration, was the senior officer in command. He was
regarded more as a politician than a soldier and his exploits in West
Virginia had not added to his fame. The men around him had little
respect for his capacity as a commander. Besides quarreling had become
the fashion in the armies of the victorious South since the affair at
Bull Run. The example of Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard was
contagious.
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