no thought of my lizard, but one of his orderlies caught sight of it on my shoulder. With the common prejudice among the soldiers that the harmless thing was a deadly poisonous reptile, he stood a moment staring and half transfixed, thinking me in deadly peril. Then, with a jump, he struck it off my shoulder with his open hand, and stamped it dead with his heavy boot heel, sure he had saved my life. But when one of my attendants exclaimed reproachfully, "There, you've killed the general's pet," the poor fellow slunk away, the picture of shame and remorse. Pets were sacred by the law of the camp, and he felt and looked as if he were a murderer. No doubt he was also stupefied at the idea that such a thing could be a pet, but in the matter of pets, as in some other things, he bowed to the law, "His not to reason why!" CHAPTER XLIII NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN--HOOD'S ADVANCE FROM THE TENNESSEE Schofield to command the army assembled at Pulaski--Forrest's Tennessee River raid--Schofield at Johnsonville--My division at Thompson's--Hastening reinforcements to Thomas--Columbia--The barrens--Pulaski--Hood delays--Suggests Purdy as a base--He advances from Florence--Our march to Columbia-Thomas's distribution of the forces--Decatur evacuated--Pontoon bridge there--Withdrawing from Columbia--Posts between Nashville and Chattanooga--The cavalry on 29th November--Their loss of touch with the army. Our railway train reached Nashville in the forenoon of Wednesday the 9th of November, and I at once visited General Schofield to report my arrival and get further orders. He had himself reported to General Thomas by telegraph when we reached Calhoun on the last day of October, and Pulaski, eighty miles south of Nashville, had been given as the rendezvous for our corps with the Fourth. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 538.] Thomas was taking a cheerful view of the situation now that the Twenty-third Corps had been ordered to him, and on the 3d of November, in giving Sherman an outline of the progress of events, said that if Beauregard "does not move before Sunday (6th), I will have Schofield and Stanley together at Pulaski, and he can then move whenever he pleases." [Footnote: Id., p. 618.] Schofield got part of Cooper's division off on Thursday, with arrangements for the rest to follow, and took the railway train himself next day. Thomas's plans then were to send the troops through Nashville without stopping, but he asked Schofield to stop for a short consultation. [Footnote: Id., p. 624.] Without waiting for this, however, he issued his order on Friday, assigning Schofield to command the troops assembling at Pulaski to operate in front of that place. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiv. pt. iii. p. 638.] This was a graceful act toward an officer of his own grade as a department commander, when as yet it was an open question whether the assignment by the President to command a department and