A council of war was sitting when the scout arrived. He was hurried into its presence, and told his story with laconic, military precision. Sherman's whole force was across the Chattahoochee and marching on Jonesborough, twenty miles away.
"I have sure information to the contrary," said the commanding general, singularly deceived by a strong conviction, enforced by scouts who depended on rumor for authority. "It is some feint to cover the general movement."
"I counted the flags, guidons, regimental insignia--such force of cavalry, artillery, infantry," giving the numbers. "I saw and recognized General Sherman," said the scout briefly.
His report was not, even then, credited, but, as a precaution, a brigade of cavalry, with his battalion in the van, was sent out to beat up the enemy. A short distance beyond Flint River they struck the Federal line, which attacked at once, without feeling--a sure indication of strength. The battalion was hurled back on the brigade, the brigade rushed across Flint River, and back into the infantry line, now throwing up tardy entrenchments at Jonesborough. The rest is historical. It was but one of the rash throws of the dice for that great stake, the watershed of the Ohio, and helps to show the principles of military action by which it was lost.
On every mountain-crest Is rest: In every vale beneath, No breath Stirs in the quietude: The little birds are silent in the wood. Soon, patient, weary breast, Thou too wilt rest.
One great feature of the Hof has hitherto been passed over in silence--the other lodgers; for, truth to say, there happened to be a large family of tourists, who, following in the wake of their parents and grandparents before them, strenuously adhered year after year to the peaceful old Hof as their summer residence. _Schwalben_ by name, they had English and American cousins, the swallows and martins: they pursued a yearly routine of spending the winter months with other connexions in Algeria or the Levant, then, dividing into groups, returned to their various mountain or pastoral homes in cooler, more verdant lands. Thus, on the second Wednesday in the month of May one family always arrived at the old castle of Neuhaus, giving a sentiment to the forsaken ruin which it could not otherwise possess, and about the same week a number of their cousins and distant connexions took up their quarters at the Hof.