Pendleton,
she said, was a sad town in these days. All of the older boys and young
men had gone away to the armies, and many of them had been killed already,
or had died in hospitals. Here she gave names and Dick's heart grew
heavy, because in this fatal list were old friends of his.
It was not alone the boys and young men who had gone, wrote Mrs. Mason,
but the middle-aged men, too. Dr. Russell had kept the Pendleton Academy
open, but he had no pupil over sixteen years of age. There were no
trustees, because they had all gone to the war. Senator Culver had been
killed in the fighting in Tennessee, but she heard that Colonel Kenton
was alive and well and with Bragg's army.
The affairs of the Union, she continued, were not going well in Tennessee
and Kentucky. The terrible Confederate cavalryman Forrest had suddenly
raided Murfreesborough in Tennessee, where Union regiments were stationed,
and had destroyed or captured them all. Throughout the west the
Southerners were raising their heads again. General Bragg, it was said,
was advancing with a strong army, and was already farther north than
the army of General Buell, which was in Tennessee.
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