They had been friends at West Point.
"Why didn't you attack me on Friday?" the Northerner asked.
"I was not in command."
"If you had, my reenforcements could not possibly have reached me in
time."
Buckner smiled grimly.
"In other words a little more promptness on one side, a little less
resolute decision on the other--and the tables would have been turned!"
"That's just it," was the short answer.
It was an ominous day for the South. Bigger than the loss of the capital
of Tennessee which Johnston evacuated the next day, bigger than the
loss of fifteen thousand men and their guns loomed the figure of a new
Federal commander. Out of the mud, and slush, ice and frozen pools of
blood--out of the storm cloud of sleet and snow and black palls of smoke
emerged the stolid, bulldog face of Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln made him a
major general.
CHAPTER XXII
JENNIE'S RECRUIT
Socola lost no time in applying for a position. The one place of all
others he wished was a berth in the War Department. It was useless to
try for it. No foreigner had ever been admitted to tiny position of
trust in this wing of the Confederate Government.
He would try for a position in the Department of State. His supposed
experience in the Diplomatic Service and his mastery of two languages
besides the English would be in his favor.
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