The Rock of Chickamauga Author:Charles King Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. "Till we're quite ready!" Time and again during the days that followed Ned Freeman found himself pondering over those words. There came a week fr... more »aught with consequence to him, and, as it proved, to his entire future. It was a week full of vivid import and interest to all about the general's field-headquarters. Early on the following morning every officer and man about camp seemed up and alert. Something stirring was in the wind. The general had spent an hour in the evening in conference with the gray-haired Virginian, to whom long service on the staff of successive governors, and the expansive custom of the Southland, had given the title of colonel. Dignified, yet courteous and gentle in manner, one of the old school of gentlemen, now, alas! well-nigh extinct, the elder Morgan clung to his prerogative with admirable tenacity. In spite of the fact that General Thomas himself had never failed to speak to or of him as colonel, there was not lacking officers of rank among the callers at headquarters who palpably balked at the title, intimating in their avoidance thereof that the time had come when only those who were in the national service were warranted in laying claim to military distinction. "Mr. Morgan," as a few referred to him among themselves, was of far finer breeding than most of their number, and among certain irreverent juniors there was a tendency toward ridicule of what they termed his "airsand graces." But such demonstrations came to abrupt end the moment the general was seen approaching, and only once did one of their number find himself caught in the act. It happened the second evening after the coming of the Morgans, and a light-hearted slip of a lieutenant, joining the circle at a regimental camp-fire and never noting the presence of a distingu...« less