our exposed position and impressed upon him thee importance of sending re-enforcements immediately. He said he had telegraphed General Nelson about it and had received no answer. We asked if he could not let us have a few cavalrymen for scouts and pickets, and if he could not do that could we not get a few saddles? That it was bad enough to have to send the men out on old broken-down horses and brood mares without having to send them out barebacked and with blind-bridles; but we could get neither. Mr. Fowler and myself asked if we could-get no cannon. Colonel Miller said that there was a howitzer there that was not in use and he would send it up to us. I then left, but called again after supper to see if an answer had been received from General Nelson. Colonel Miller was out, but I found a gentleman who been run off from his home at Lebanon at 2 o'clock the night before because he was a Unionist and feared Starnes' men, who were then in Lebanon. With him was a brother-in-law of Colonel Stokes or General Campbell-I do not exactly remember which-but they waited with me until Colonel Miller came and told him what they knew. Colonel Jordan Stokes came in to warn the authorities of danger. He had received a letter form his wife at Lebanon, in which she reported Starnes at that place. They all thought we should be re-enforced at Gallatin. Colonel Miller had received word form General Nelson to re-enforce us if he thought best; said he had telegraphed to Colonel Boone about it.

I then reminded Colonel Miller of his promise to send the cannon and left. The next morning I returned to Gallatin, and the next morning succeeding my return the Thirty-first Indiana arrived and encamped nears us. Brigadier-General Cruft was commanding the regiment. He thought there should be at least one regiment of infantry and two or three companies of cavalry there. The second day after their arrival they were ordered to go back to Murfreesborough, leaving us as exposed as before. Colonel Boone then was notified by Colonel Miller that he would send 150 men with axes and tools to put up stockades at each of the bridges and a fortification at Gallatin. The day following a lieutenant and 26 men form an Ohio regiment arrived and reported for duty.

They brought no axes or tools and none had arrived. The next day they were ordered back to Nashville, and authority came to Colonel Boone to press negroes and build the fortifications; and that night Lieutenants Keegan and Platt, of Eleventh Michigan, arrived with some 60 men and some wagons, but no tools of any kind. The same day a lieutenant of Sixty-ninth Ohio arrived from Nashville with 37 negroes, and we were getting a pretty good force on hand, but no tools to work with. Colonel Boone telegraphed to Nashville after axes and picks, and was ordered to press axes. In a country where everybody is an enemy it soon became known that we were pressing axes, and although we started out two wagons, one under charge of Lieutenant Platt and a squad of men and the other under charge of a sergeant and a squad instantly, they found it difficult to get the axes, and it took several days to collect enough to go to work with. Lieutenant Keegan was ordered by Colonel Boone to take charge of the business, and to employ all the available force in the construction of the stockades and to shove the work forward as rapidly as possible. Nearly every ax that was pressed needed a new handle and grinding; they were put in order and employed immediately in cutting timber for the stockades.

Still we had no plans nor pickaxes, and not near enough axes; but all that we had were employed.

About this time, say four or five days after the arrival of Lieutenant Keegan with the Eleventh Michigan men, Lieutenant Howland, aide-de-