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[266] fifty-two pieces of captured artillery, ten thousand stand of arms, and heaps of dead rebels, or by driving upon a herd of seven thousand prisoners. Nothing of all this can lighten that burden a single ounce, but this thought may, and I dare to utter it: These three days work brought Tennessee to resurrection; set the flag, that fairest blossom in all this flowery world, to blooming in its native soil once more.

That splendid march from the Federal line of battle to the crest, was made in one hour and five minutes, but it was a grander march toward the end of rebeldom; a glorious campaign of sixty-five minutes toward the white borders of peace. It made that fleeting November afternoon imperishable. Than the assault upon Mission Ridge, I know of nothing more gallant in the annals of the war. Let it rank foremost with the storming of Forts Scharnitz and Alma, that covered the French arms with undying fame.

Reader and writer must walk together down the heights another day; press that rugged earth with the first backward step a loyal foot has made upon it, and, as we linger, recall a few of the incidents that will render it historic and holy ground for coming time. Let the struggle be known as the Battle of Mission Ridge, and when, in calmer days, men make pilgrimage, and women smile again among the mountains of the Cumberland, they will need no guide. Rust will have eaten the guns; the graves of the heroes will have subsided like waves; weary of their troubling, the soldier and his leader will have lain down together; but there, embossed upon the globe, Mission Ridge will stand its fitting monument forever.

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