A STORY OF THE WAR 



123 



exact fact which marks the true idealist as distinguished from 

 the mere dreamer, had, with the permission of the authorities, 

 proceeded with his measurements. Some time after the Civil 

 War began, Coolidge found his place as Major of the Sixteenth 

 Infantry of the Union army. At Chickamauga he commanded 

 the regiment and, holding his place when the line broke, was 

 killed. So I needs must go forward ten years and complete here 

 the story of my Philip Sidney's end. 



From a captured officer who was not, as I remember him, 

 from his regiment, I learned shortly after the battle of Chicka- 

 mauga that Waggener had been killed on that field. My in- 

 formant had seen him dead upon the ground at the close of the 

 action. As was the way in those days, I bade him farewell with 

 but a fanciful grief and thought little more about him. In 1874, 

 being then state geologist, I happened to be in Kentucky. It 

 came to my mind that my friend was from that place, and that 

 he had kindred there. With this memory came a grief for his 

 loss I had not felt before. Thus moved, it occurred to me to 

 seek his family. I was directed where to find some of them, and 

 set out for the place. On the way, I encountered a man whose 

 shape led me to say, "Sir, are you a kinsman of Leslie Wag- 

 gener? " To which he answered, " That 's my name, sir." " But," 

 I said, " the Leslie Waggener I have in mind was killed at Chick- 

 amauga." " No," he rejoined, "he was n't killed, though he was 

 left as dead. There's no other Leslie Waggener and never has 

 been." While I silently stared at him, for once in my life quite 

 nonplussed, he in turn said, "You look like Nat Shaler." I told 

 him that was my name, but as if repeating my words, he said, 



"The fellow I mean was killed at Stone River; Jim , who 



knew him well, saw him lying dead." I answered him that there 

 were two good reasons why that was n't true ; first, that I was 

 not at Stone River, and, second, that I was very much alive. At 

 this stage of our strange business, we sat down on a box in front 

 of a store and gaped at one another. The odd part of it was, 

 as we afterward remarked, that there was in our hearts no trace 



