the sword which was to save the Union. "Year after year, the pine cones fall, And the whippoorwill lisps her spectral call. They have ceased, but their glory will never cease, Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace. The rush of the charge is sounding still, That saved the Army at Chancellorsville." CHAPTER XIV THE RESCUE OF THE SCOUTS The man who will risk his life for his friends, the leader who never deserts his band, the soldier who will not escape alone, these are the men whom history has always hailed as heroes. Some of the greatest stories of devotion and courage have been those which chronicle the rescue of men from almost certain death. Courage and devotion have often opened the dark doors of dungeons, stricken the fetters from despairing prisoners and saved men doomed to death from the stake, the block and the gallows. When the Civil War broke out, the lot of the few Union men left in the South was a hard one. The fierce passions of those days ran so high that not only was a Unionist himself liable to death and the confiscation of his property, but even his family were not safe. In 1863 there was a Georgian who assumed the name of William Morford in order to protect those of his family who lived in Georgia from the bitter hatred which his services for the Union had aroused. He was one of many devoted scouts who worked secretly and single-handed for their country, claiming no reward if they won and losing their lives on the gallows if they lost. Morford throughout 1863 was attached to the command of General Rosecrans and performed many a feat during that stormy year. It was Morford who burned an important bridge under the very eyes of a Confederate regiment sent to guard it and who, when the light from the flames made escape impossible, coolly mingled with the guards and actually received their congratulations for his bravery in attempting to put out the fire which he himself had lighted. It was Morford who single-handed captured a Confederate colonel while he was sleeping in a house surrounded by his regiment and with his staff in the next room. Morford obtained access to him under pretense of bearing an important oral dispatch from General Beauregard himself. They were left alone with an armed sentry just outside the half-opened door. Stepping to one side so that he could not be seen by the guard, Morford suddenly placed a cocked revolver close against the substantial stomach of the colonel. "I have been sent, Colonel," he muttered sternly, "to either capture or kill you. I would rather capture you, for if I kill you I shall have to fight my way out, but it is for you to say which it shall be." The colonel was a brave officer, but a cocked revolver against one's stomach is discouraging even for a hero. He decided instantly that he much preferred being a prisoner to being a corpse and said as much to Morford.