It was most unbecoming to have strange men in the house when

Melanie was in a delicate condition and when gruesome sights might

bring on premature birth. But Melanie reefed up her top hoop a

little higher to hide her thickening figure and the wounded invaded

the brick house. There was endless cooking and lifting and turning

and fanning, endless hours of washing and rerolling bandages and

picking lint, and endless warm nights made sleepless by the

babbling delirium of men in the next room. Finally the choked town

could take care of no more and the overflow of wounded was sent on

to the hospitals at Macon and Augusta.

With this backwash of wounded bearing conflicting reports and the

Increase of frightened refugees crowding into the already crowded

town, Atlanta was in an uproar. The small cloud on the horizon had

blown up swiftly into a large, sullen storm cloud and it was as

though a faint, chilling wind blew from it.

No one had lost faith in the invincibility of the troops but

everyone, the civilians at least, had lost faith in the General.

New Hope Church was only thirty-five miles from Atlanta! The

General had let the Yankees push him back sixty-five miles in three

weeks! Why didn't he hold the Yankees instead of everlastingly

retreating? He was a fool and worse than a fool. Graybeards in

the Home Guard and members of the state militia, safe in Atlanta,

Insisted they could have managed the campaign better and drew maps

on tablecloths to prove their contentions. As his lines grew

thinner and he was forced back farther, the General called

desperately on Governor Brown for these very men, but the state

troops felt reasonably safe. After all, the Governor had defied

Jeff Davis' demand for them. Why should he accede to General

Johnston?

Fight and fall back! Fight and fall back! For seventy miles and

twenty-five days the Confederates had fought almost daily. New

Hope Church was behind the gray troops now, a memory in a mad haze

of like memories, heat, dust, hunger, weariness, tramp-tramp on the

red rutted roads, slop-slop through the red mud, retreat, entrench,

fight--retreat, entrench, fight. New Hope Church was a nightmare

of another life and so was Big Shanty, where they turned and fought

the Yankees like demons. But, fight the Yankees till the fields

were blue with dead, there were always more Yankees, fresh Yankees;

there was always that sinister southeast curving of the blue lines

toward the Confederate rear, toward the railroad--and toward

Atlanta!

From Big Shanty, the weary sleepless lines retreated down the road

to Kennesaw Mountain, near the little town of Marietta, and here

they spread their lines in a ten-mile curve. On the steep sides of

the mountain they dug their rifle pits and on the towering heights

they planted their batteries. Swearing, sweating men hauled the

heavy guns up the precipitous slopes, for mules could not climb the

hillsides. Couriers and wounded coming into Atlanta gave

reassuring reports to the frightened townspeople. The heights of

Kennesaw were impregnable. So were Pine Mountain and Lost Mountain

near by which were also fortified. The Yankees couldn't dislodge

Old Joe's men and they could hardly flank them now for the

batteries on the mountain tops commanded all the roads for miles.

Atlanta breathed more easily, but--

But Kennesaw Mountain was only twenty-two miles away!

On the day when the first wounded from Kennesaw Mountain were

coming in, Mrs. Merriwether's carriage was at Aunt Pitty's house at

the unheard-of hour of seven in the morning, and black Uncle Levi

sent up word that Scarlett must dress immediately and come to the

hospital. Fanny Elsing and the Bonnell girls, roused early from

slumber, were yawning on the back seat and the Elsings' mammy sat

grumpily on the box, a basket of freshly laundered bandages on her

lap. Off Scarlett went, unwillingly for she had danced till dawn

the night before at the Home Guard's party and her feet were tired.

She silently cursed the efficient and indefatigable Mrs.

Merriwether, the wounded and the whole Southern Confederacy, as

Prissy buttoned her in her oldest and raggedest calico frock which

she used for hospital work. Gulping down the bitter brew of

parched corn and dried sweet potatoes that passed for coffee, she

went out to join the girls.

She was sick of all this nursing. This very day she would tell

Mrs. Merriwether that Ellen had written her to come home for a