It was well on in the afternoon when Berry reached the cabin. As Mollie had not appeared that morning Mrs. Arnold supposed Berry was with her and had not been anxious. But Berry now told the story of her adventure, to which her mother and father listened in amazement.

“The soldiers did not give me a chance to tell them that I was a little Yankee girl,” Berry concluded resentfully.

“No pickets on guard; and General Grant at Savannah!” exclaimed Mr. Arnold, quite forgetting Berry’s experience with “witches” and spies, as Berry described the unguarded camp at Pittsburg Landing. “If Johnston and Beauregard discover these things they will attack at once!” he said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps that letter was to tell them,” said Berry, adding: “I’m so hungry!”

Lily instantly sped to the pantry; and in a few moments Berry was happily occupied with a plate of corn bread and a pitcher of milk. Later186 on her mother talked seriously with the little girl, telling Berry of the possible accidents that might have befallen her, and no one at the cabin knowing where to look for her.

“And if you had given the letter to your father, my dear, he would have read it and discovered if it was of any importance,” she concluded. Mrs. Arnold did not ask any promise from Berry, for she felt sure there would be no more midnight visits to the “witch-tree”; and she did not for a moment imagine that Berry had resolved to do “guard duty” for the camp at Pittsburg Landing.

A week passed, with heavy rains making the roads to Corinth nearly impassable, and convincing Berry that there was no need for anyone to look out for marching foes. But although Saturday morning, the fifth of April, dawned in a furious rain, Berry resolved it was again time for her to visit the distant ridge. But her father was ill that morning; Lily was kept busy at household tasks, and Mrs. Arnold required Berry’s assistance, so it was not until night that Berry could leave the cabin.

Dark clouds were sweeping over the tops of the forest trees as the little girl lowered herself187 from the window of her room and made her way through the gathering darkness to the trail leading to Shiloh. Long before her journey was completed she heard strange sounds and muffled noises, but the rain had ceased and she went slowly forward, stopping now and then to listen, but with no idea that, in spite of rain and almost impassable roads, the Confederates had marched from Corinth, and that in Shiloh woods yonder, grimly awaiting the dawn, 40,000 Confederate troops lay waiting the command to attack Pittsburg Landing; an army that General Grant believed to be in Corinth, twenty miles away. This stealthily moving host now lay on its arms, weary from its day’s march. No fires had been lighted; and sheltered in the shadowy forest a council of Confederate generals gathered in the small clearing toward which Berry was noiselessly approaching.

The flicker of a light attracted the little girl’s attention, and she made her way toward it, and in a moment stopped suddenly, too amazed and frightened to comprehend that she was gazing upon one of the important scenes in the history of the Civil War.

Resting on a stump was a lantern; a drum188 served as a writing-desk; and seated on a blanket close by was General Hardee, broad-shouldered and muscular; General Bragg, who sat beside him, was wan and haggard; his iron gray beard and thin form in great contrast to that of Hardee’s. Berry’s eyes rested longest on a dignified and martial figure that paced slowly from the stump to the edge of the group. Tall, erect and powerful, with a gray military cloak thrown over his shoulders, General Albert Sidney Johnston, Commander of the Confederate forces at Shiloh, might well hold the attention of any observer; and Berry never forgot her only glimpse of this resolute and fearless soldier who, before another sunset, was fated to fall on the field of battle.

Walking quickly to and fro was a slender figure in gray uniform; the soldierly and handsome Beauregard; and Generals Breckinridge and Polk stood silent near by.

Berry, crouching behind a stump, could hear their entire conversation. She heard Beauregard declare that the union camp was entirely unprepared to face an attack; that General Grant was nine miles down the river, and on the other shore at that; and, as he bade his companions good-night, he confidently announced,189 “Gentlemen, to-morrow night we sleep in the enemy’s camp.”

Berry waited to hear no more. Here was the very opportunity for which she had been waiting: to be of use to the cause for which Francis was fighting. She quite forgot her reception at the union camp that morning of a week earlier as she realized how close at hand was the attack upon them. She knew that no time must be lost. The night was dark, and it would be no easy matter for her to find her way along trails and over the streams, swollen by recent rains, that she must cross to rea............