The Captain was a man of proper gallantry, a fitting squire of dames, but, withal, not lacking in judicious discretion. The Confederate troopers certainly would not molest the women, bent upon their righteous mission, but to him captivity meant worse than death. Making hasty excuses, in unceremonious fashion, he jumped from the wagon, pulled a colored teamster off of a mule that he had just cut out of the traces of a wagon, mounted and took quickly to the woods on the side of the mountain. As he plunged deeper into the thicket, he saw in the valley the light of burning wagons, and heard the terrific explosions of ammunition with which many of them were loaded. After days and nights of distress he at last found his way to our camps. A day or two after, hearing that the female companions of the good captain had reached our lines, I called upon them in the town and heard the rest of the story. Wheeler’s rough riders had treated them with courteous consideration and did not molest their trunks when told that they contained only woman’s apparel. Keel’s baggage and my own was evidently rich booty. The new uniforms were seized with delight, and my precious seven-shooters appropriated with exclamations of joy and admiration. Taking what was wanted, the residue was thrown back on the wagons, that had been run and piled together, and made food for the flames. The train was but partly consumed when our cavalry appeared upon the scene and a sharp fight ensued, with the result that the women were released from their unpleasant situation. While the beleaguered army in Chattanooga, foregoing, if not forgetting, the pangs of hunger, echoed the language of Thomas in his telegram to Grant, “We will hold this place until we starve,” it was with right good will that it marched out in front of its works on an eventful November morning, being ordered to make a “demonstration” and relieve the pressure on Sherman in his effort to take Tunnel Hill, the right flank of the semi-circular natural defense of the enemy, composed of Missionary Ridge, with its crest from five hundred to eight hundred feet above us, around to Lookout on the left with its proud head over two thousand feet above the town. It was a crescent, with defensive works erected with engineering skill, bristling with guns and reflecting threatening lights as the sun played upon the musket barrels and bayonets in the hands of skilled and brave defenders. It looked like the curve of the cutting edge of a huge scimitar. [Illustration: MAP OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF CHATTANOOGA SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY AT LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND MISSION RIDGE.]