spent days, and even weeks, going about through the division giving
recitations before the camp-fires, and in improvised chapels, which
the men had constructed from refuse lumber and canvas. Suiting his
selections to the occasion, he never failed to excite intense
interest in the breasts of all present, and when circumstances
finally separated him from us, all felt that a debt of gratitude was
due him that could never be paid. The pleasure he gave, and the
confident feeling that was now arising from expected reinforcements,
was darkened, however, by one sad incident. Three men of my division
had deserted their colors at the beginning of the siege and made
their way north. They were soon arrested, and were brought back to
stand trial for the worst offense that can be committed by a soldier,
convicted of the crime, and ordered to be shot. To make the example
effective I paraded the whole division for the execution, and on the
13th of November, in the presence of their former comrades, the
culprits were sent, in accordance with the terms of their sentence,
to render their account to the Almighty. It was the saddest
spectacle I ever witnessed, but there could be no evasion, no
mitigation of the full letter of the law; its timely enforcement was
but justice to the brave spirits who had yet to fight the rebellion
to the end.

General Grant arrived at Chattanooga on October 23, and began at once
to carry out the plans that had been formed for opening the shorter
or river road to Bridgeport. This object was successfully
accomplished by the moving of Hooker's command to Rankin's and
Brown's ferries in concert with a force from the Army of the
Cumberland which was directed on the same points, so by the 27th of
October direct communication with our depots was established. The
four weeks which followed this cheering result were busy with the