All day on this right the conflict howled. Hardee and Hardee’s corps were cool and stanch; Cleburne was a trusted man, hilt and blade. Sherman launched his thunderbolts, blue charge after blue charge; “General Pat” flung them back. The sky was dark with the leaden rain; the November woods rang; Tunnel Hill, Swett’s and Key’s batteries, flamed through the murk; Texas and Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee, grappled with Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio. All day, to and fro, in the leafless woods, under the chill sky, over a rugged ground, they swung and swayed. Now the blue seemed uppermost, and now the grey, but at last the grey charged with bayonets. After this the blue rested, a sullen sea, held back by Tunnel Hill and all the grey-hued slopes around. The afternoon was well advanced, the smoke-draped woods dim enough. Cleburne’s men smiled, nodding their heads. “That old eclipse wa’n’t nothing! This Confederacy’s immortal—Yes, she is! She’s got a wreath of immortelles.—I’m going to ask General Pat if she hasn’t! You artillerymen did first-rate, and we infantry did first-rate, and if the cavalry hadn’t been sent away I reckon they’d have done as well as it lies in cavalry to do.—Now, if the centre and the left—” A courier came over stock and stone, pushing a foam-flecked horse—“General Cleburne!—Order from General Hardee—” Cleburne read: “_General: Send at once all possible troops to support centre. It’s much in danger._” Cleburne took Cummings and Maney and with them set face to Missionary Ridge. A little way through the darkening wood and a gasping aide met him—“From General Hardee, sir! They’ve pierced our centre. They’re on the Ridge—they’ve overflowed Missionary Ridge. We’re all cut to pieces there—demoralized.—General Hardee says, form a line so as to meet attack. Do the best you can for the safety of the right wing—” Missionary Ridge rose two hundred feet. It rose steeply, with a narrow plateau a-top. It was seamed with gullies, shaggy with woods. In places, however, the wood had been cleared, leaving the stumps of trees, gaunt, with sere, slippery grass between. At the foot of the Ridge were grey works, and now, within the last twenty-four hours, the grey had built other works along the crest. For lack of entrenching-tools and of time, they were slight enough—a shallow ditch, a slight breastwork, dark against a pallid sky. Here, at the top of Missionary, and there at the foot, were gathered the Confederate centre, together with the troops driven yesterday from Lookout. Missionary Ridge was like a crag, rising from a blue, determined sea. Officers looked at the lines. “What do you think of it?” “Bad.” “Even here at the top we don’t command all approaches.” “No. Those ravines are natural covered ways. They can come close and our guns never harm them.” “Do you understand this order?” “No. I don’t—”