With the increasing daylight the pursuit was reopened with vigor, and on we went, and ever on, marching all that day, our rear-guard being constantly engaged, and hundreds of our men being captured, thousands more scattering into the woods. My lieutenant-colonel, Von Helmrich, who had been for twenty-eight years a cavalry officer in Germany, and who, after thirteen months in Libby Prison, had overtaken us as we were leaving Memphis, was recaptured and carried back to Richmond,--to die of a good dinner on his second release, ten months later. At nightfall, the pursuit growing weak, we halted to collect together our stragglers, but not to rest, and after a short half-hour pushed on again; and all that interminable night, and until half past ten the next morning, when we reached Colliersville and the railroad, reinforcements, and supplies, we marched, marched, marched, without rest, without sleep, and without food. The cavalrymen were mainly dismounted and driving their tired jades before them, only Max and a few others carrying their riders to the very end, and coming in with a whinny of content to the familiar stables and back-yards of the little town. Most other officers whose service had been as constant as mine had had extra horses to ride for relief; but I had never yet found march too long for Max's wiry sinews, and trusted to him alone. He had now been ridden almost absolutely without intermission, and much of the time at a gallop or a rapid trot, for fifty-four hours. I had had for my own support the excitement and then the anxious despair of responsible service, and Ike had filled his haversack with hard-bread from John Ellard's abandoned wagon; an occasional nibble at this, and unlimited pipes of tobacco, had fortified me in my endurance of the work; but Max had had in the whole time not the half of what he would have made light of for a single meal. I have known and have written about brilliant feats of other horses, but as I look over the whole range of all the best animals I have seen, I bow with respect to the wonderful courage, endurance, and fidelity of this superbly useful brute. There is an elasticity in youth and health, trained and hardened by years of active field-service, which asserts itself under the most depressing circumstances. Even this shameful and horrible defeat and flight had their ludicrous incidents, which we were permitted to appreciate. Thus, for instance, during a lull in the engagement at Guntown, I had seated myself in a rush-bottomed chair under the lee of a broad tree-trunk; a prudent pig, suspecting danger, had taken shelter between the legs of the chair, leaving, however, his rear unprotected. Random bullets have an odd way of finding weak places, and it was due to one of these that I was unseated, with an accompaniment of squeal, by the rapid and articulate flight of my companion.