I tried staff duty with General Polk, who was making an expedition into Western Kentucky.

In a few weeks illness drove me into Nashville, where I passed the next winter in desultory newspaper work.

Then Nashville fell, and, as I was making my way out of town afoot and trudging the Murfreesboro pike, Forrest, with his squadron just escaped from Fort Donelson, came thundering by, and I leaped into an empty saddle.

A few days later Forrest, promoted to brigadier general, attached me to his staff, and the next six months it was mainly guerilla service, very much to my liking.

But Fate, if not Nature, had decided that I was a better writer than fighter, and the Bank of Tennessee having bought a newspaper outfit at Chattanooga, I was sent there to edit The Rebel--my own naming--established as the organ of the Tennessee state government.