Crossing the creek’s bed the sergeant ascended a wooded ridge, and now he proceeded with extreme caution. He had learned that beyond this ridge was another creek containing much more water than the first. Upon its banks at the crossing of the road stood the village of Perryville, and there, according to his best information and belief, lay the Southern army. But he meant to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, and thus return to McCook’s force with absolute certainty.
The sergeant, as he had expected, found cover more plentiful than it was on the plains, but he never stalked an Indian camp with more caution. He knew that the most of the Southern scouts and skirmishers were as wary as the Indians that once hunted in these woods, and that, unless he used extreme care, he was not likely to get past them.
He came at last to a point where he lay down flat on his stomach and wormed himself along, keeping in the thickest shadow of woods and bushes. The night was bright, and although his own body was blended with the ground, he could see well about him. The sergeant was a very patient man. Life as a lumberman and then as a soldier on the plains had taught him to look where he was crawling. He spent a full hour worming himself up to the crest of that ridge and a little way down on the other side. In the course of the last fifteen minutes he passed directly between two alert and vigilant Southern pickets. They looked his way several times, but the sergeant was so much in harmony with the color scheme of the earth on which he crept, that no blame lay upon them for not seeing him.
The sergeant was already hearing with his own ears. He heard these pickets and others talking in low voices of the Northern army and of their own. They knew that Buell’s great force was approaching from different points and that a battle was expected on the morrow. He knew this already, but he wanted to know how much of the Confederate army lay in Perryville, and he intended to see with his own eyes.
Having passed the first line of pickets the sergeant advanced more rapidly, although he still kept well under cover. Advancing thus he reached the bed of the creek and hid himself against the bank, allowing his body to drop down in the water, in order that he might feel the glorious cool thrill again, and also that he might be hidden to the neck. His rifle and ammunition he laid at the edge of the bank within reach. Situated thus comfortably, he used his excellent eyes with excellent results. He could see Perryville on his left, and also a great camp on some heights that ran along the creek. There were plenty of lights in this camp, and, despite the lateness of the hour, officers were passing about.
It was obvious to the sergeant that many thousands of soldiers were on those heights, and now he wanted to hear again with his own ears. He did not dare go any nearer, and the water in the creek was growing cold to his body. But his patience was great, and still he waited, only his head showing above the water, and it hidden in the black gloom of the bank’s shadows.
His reward came by-and-by. A number of cavalrymen led their horses down to the creek to drink, and while the horses drank and then blew the water away from their noses, the men talked at some length, enabling the sergeant to pick up important scraps of information.
He learned that the heights were occupied by Hardee with two divisions. It was the same Hardee, the famous tactician who had been one of the Southern generals at Shiloh. Polk was expected, but he had not yet come up. Bragg, too, would be there.
The brave sergeant’s heart thumped as he listened. He gathered that Polk, perhaps, could not arrive before noon, and here was a brilliant chance to destroy a large part of the Southern army early in the morning.