"'Frankie, I love you. Poor boy! you shall not be left alone. Is not this some comfort to you?' "'Do you love me? Will you stay with me, and not leave me?' "'I will not leave you. Be comforted, I will stay as long as you wish.' "I kissed the pale forehead as if it had been that of my own child. A glad light flashed over his face. "'O, kiss me again; that was given like my sister. Mrs. S----, won't you kiss me, too? I don't think it will be so hard to die, if you will both love me.' "It did not last long. With his face nestled against mine, and his large blue eyes fixed in perfect composure upon me to the last moment, he breathed out his life." So he died for his country. He sleeps on the banks of the beautiful Ohio. Men labor hard for riches, honor, and fame, but few, when life is over, will leave a nobler record than this young Christian patriot. CHAPTER XII. FROM FORT PILLOW TO MEMPHIS. On the 6th of May, 1861, the Legislature of Tennessee, in secret session, voted that the State should secede from the Union. The next day, Governor Harris appointed three Commissioners to meet Mr. Hilliard, of Alabama, who had been sent by Jefferson Davis to make a league with the State. These Commissioners agreed that all the troops of the State should be under the control of the President of the Confederacy. All of the public property and naval stores and munitions of war were also turned over to the Confederacy. The people had nothing to do about it. The conspirators did not dare to trust the matter to them, for a great many persons in East Tennessee were ardently attached to the Union. In Western Tennessee, along the Mississippi, nearly all of the people, on the other hand, were in favor of secession. At Memphis they were very wild and fierce. Union men were mobbed, tarred and feathered, ridden on rails, had their heads shaved, were robbed, knocked down, and warned to leave the place or be hung. One man was headed up in a hogshead, and rolled into the river, because he stood up for the Union! Memphis was a hotbed of secessionists; it was almost as bad as Charleston. A Memphis newspaper, of the 6th of May, said:-- "Tennessee is disenthralled at last. Freedom has again crowned her with a fresh and fadeless wreath. She will do her entire duty. Great sacrifices are demanded of her, and they will be cheerfully made. Her blood and treasure are offered without stint at the shrine of Southern freedom. She counts not the cost at which independence may be bought. The gallant volunteer State of the South, her brave sons, now rushing to the standard of the Southern Confederacy, will sustain, by their unflinching valor and deathless devotion, her ancient renown achieved on so many battle-fields.