“He declined, and presently left me; then, thinking to find a crossing into the river road before the head of the column would lap the foot, I sent Captain Kneffler, who was still with Major Myers at the Owl Creek bridge, intelligence of the altered situation and a desire that he would remain with Myers and help take care of the rear. Thereupon I ordered a counter-march by brigades. The tactics of the movement have been criticised, and I now think justly. I should have resorted to a right-about of column. “Note, now, please—when we thus changed direction, from the south facing north, it was to march completely around the left flank of the Confederate army. Note, also—when the counter-march was ordered, not only was my cavalry holding the bridges at Owl Creek, scarcely a half-mile from the bluff on which the right of Sherman’s division rested in the morning, but Thayer’s advance guard had been some time turned into the Hamburg-Purdy road, and could not have been to exceed three-quarters of a mile from the bridge. And, marvelous to say, not a sign of the enemy had been seen! The inference is that the rear of the Confederates was unguarded. Indeed, it has been told me by reputable officers of their side that at the time of my approach there were fully as many of their soldiers looting and drinking in the captured camps as there were of ours burrowing under the bluffs down at the landing. Who shall tell the result had I been permitted to go on in my march? Many a time, seeing as we see in dreams, I have beheld Thayer’s deployed regiments moving through those tented streets, a wave crested with bayonets, and heard the demoralized hordes rushing panic-stricken upon their engaged lines. And now, in moments when personal ambition gets the better of me, I hold Rowley’s coming my greatest quarrel with Fortune. Oh, if he had remained lost in the woods an hour longer!” [1] _Appleton’s Magazine_, January, 1906. [Illustration] SOME BEAUTIFUL WOMEN OF THE SOUTH [Illustration: MISS ALETHA VARDAMAN Daughter of the Governor of Mississippi _Sweeney, Jackson_] [Illustration: MRS. J. C. W. BECKHAM Wife of the Governor of Kentucky _G. B. Waggener, Philadelphia_] [Illustration: MISS EULALIE GORMAN Dallas _Voorhees & DeVoe, Dallas_] [Illustration: MRS. THEODORE PERRY SHONTS, OF WASHINGTON] [Illustration: MRS. WILLIAM ATKINSON JONES Warsaw, Virginia] AUNT HETTY ON THE “WET AND THE DRY” By Louise Clarke Pyrnelle [The editors feel that they will not be treating their readers fairly unless they call especial attention to this picture of Alabama negro life and the unusual cleverness of the dialect.—Editors Taylor-Trotwood.] The town of Luckville had been from its very beginning “wet;” that is, there had always been a saloon or “doggery,” at which whisky could be bought by the pint, quart or gallon.