back into walhalla—we run into a rebel picket in the dark and are taken in—a little judicious lieing secures our release—overtaking some wagons going from market—chatting with a company of rebel cavalry.
Starting out again at dark, we walked on rapidly for about five miles, when we came to some covered wagons beside the road, and just after passing them, I said to Alban, “I believe this is Walhalla again.” He thought it impossible; so said I, “we won’t go far before we come to a carpenter shop, with a bench outside.” Sure enough, we soon came to the carpenter shop that I had noticed as we passed hastily through the town that morning. Turning about we walked back, and soon found how we had made the mistake in the darkness. Near where these wagons were camped, there was a fork in the road; we had taken the right hand fork in the morning, and turned into the woods to the left of the road. The road we had found at night, was the other branch of the fork and turning to the left again, we had walked directly back to where we started from in the morning.[Pg 163] It was now nine o’clock, and again taking the right hand road, we started back towards Tunnel Hill.
There were mile boards on this road, that told the distance, and as we had been told it was six miles to Tunnel Hill, we walked along briskly for nearly four miles, when all of a sudden there rang out clear and distinct that well known challenge: “Halt! Who comes there?”
The voice was not five rods ahead, and through the darkness we could discern the outline of the sentry, and just beyond a dim fire of dying embers.
“Soldiers!” was the prompt reply to the challenge by Captain Alban. “Have you got any showance?” (pass.) “Yes, sir,” he answered. “Well, come in and let’s see it.” Alban was about twenty yards ahead of me, and as I had not yet spoken, I thought perhaps I might not have been seen, and as he approached the sentry, I crouched down, preparatory to sliding into the woods. But the guard saw me, and asked if that was another soldier behind, and upon being answered in the affirmative, told me to come in too. I said I didn’t think he would allow us both to approach at once; that we never would at the front allow but one to approach at a time.
“Oh, we’ve got force enough to take care of both of youans,” said he. So we walked in, and he took us up to the smoldering fire, where six or eight others were sitting and lying around, and speaking to some one whom[Pg 164] he called Dock, told him to get up and look at our “showance.” While Dock was crawling out, pulling on his boots, and rubbing his eyes, the guard asked what command we belonged to. We told them that we belonged to the 32d Georgia. (This was the regiment that was guarding Yankee prisoners at Columbia.) That we were stationed at Columbia, guarding Yankee prisoners; that we had just come to Walhalla by the train, and thought we would walk as far as Tunnel Hill, and stay there all night, and see the Captain, (giving his name,) who was an old friend of mine, that I had not seen since the war broke out, and I wanted to have a visit with him. That we were going to Towns County, Georgia, where my sister (giving a ficticious name), who was Alban’s wife, lived; that I had a sick furlough for thirty days, and Alban had a pass for ten days, to go and see his wife. We mentioned two or three names that had been furnished us by Mr. Addis, and asked if they knew them.
By the time “Dock” was ready to examine our papers, we had got them thoroughly interested in us, and had so thoroughly impressed upon them the belief that we were all right, and then I showed them my legs which were so terribly inflamed, and told them that I was suffering from inflammatory rheumatism,—which was the nearest the truth of anything that I had yet told them—and groaned over the excruciating pain I was suffering. When I had fully impressed them with the truthfulness[Pg 165] of my story, I took from my pocket an enlistment paper that I had, and produced it as my furlough. I told them that I bought that overcoat of a Yankee for five plugs of tobacco, and got the pants for two plugs; that you could buy any thing of those Yankee prisoners for tobacco; They would sell the shirt off their back for tobacco. Finally “Dock” took my furlough, and as it was raining hard, and the fire would not burn, he got down on his knees beside it, and would blow up a little blaze, and try to make out the papers; but could only see that it was a printed and written document of some kind. At the same time I was groaning over my suffering legs, and rubbing them, and wishing I was at the captain’s quarters, where I could rest and care for them. After “Dock” had tried in vain for sometime to make out my furlough, I said it was too bad to keep me there in the rain where I was sure to take cold in my legs; that the Captain could examine the papers in the morning, and see that they were all right. So he finally said, well I reckon you are all right, you can go ahead. If you want to go to Clayton it is the nearest way to take the left fork, but if you want to go to Tunnel Hill take the right. We passed on a few yards to the forks, and not wishing to let them see how anxious we were to get away, we stopped and discussed the question whether we would go on to Tunnel Hill, or turn towards Clayton.
We finally turned towards Clayton, as we had all the time intended, and when we got out of sight and hearing[Pg 166] of the picket post, we just lay down and rolled and laughed. Up to the time that “Dock” told us we could go on, we had scarcely the slightest idea that they would not detect the fraud, and march us off under guard to headquarters. Sick and lame as I was, I could not restrain my laughter at this adventure, for hours after.
We hurried forward however, for fear the officer of the guard might be making his rounds, and learning of our passing the picket, follow us up to ascertain that we were all right. About one o’clock we halted, completely tired out with our almost incessant march of nearly forty-eight hours, in the mud and rain, with little to eat, and as wet as we were, we lay down in a thicket beside the road, and slept soundly until daylight. When we awoke, we were wet through and completely chilled, and started on to try and get warm. We soon came to a river which we were obliged to ford, the water being nearly up to our waist, but as we were already as wet as we could be, it did not make much difference whether we were in the water or on dry land.
We soon came upon some teams that were camped beside the road, being on their way back from Walhalla to Cherokee County, North Carolina. There were two rebel soldiers acting as guard for the teams, and the owner was a Doctor Washburn, formerly from Livingston County, N. Y., as he informed me. They were cooking their breakfast, but did not say anything about our taking breakfast with them. They, however, directed us to[Pg 167] the house of a widow, a little farther on, where we could be accommodated. We stopped there, and she got us up a nice breakfast of corn bread, sweet potatoes and fried mutton, and I guess she thought by the way we eat that we had not had anything before in some days, and did not know when we would get anything again. This widow was quite bitter towards the Confederacy on account of her son having been conscripted, and she left alone, with no one to work her little farm or care for her children. She was too poor to hire the work done, and was obliged to do all that was done towards supporting herself and children; as her son’s pay scarcely amounted to enough to keep him in tobacco, and left nothing towards the support of his mother and a family of small children. Having eaten and paid for our breakfast, we waited for the teams to come along, and then we concluded to travel with them, as it would give us the appearance of being all right, if we should meet any soldiers on the road.
We soon made ourselves at home in their company and I found Dr. Washburn a very kind-hearted gentleman, and I think that he more than half suspected our true characters, though he did not pretend to doubt that we were Confederate soldiers, belonging to the 32d Georgia. He offered to loan me all the money I needed, which, as he was a perfect stranger, seemed to me pretty good evidence that he knew I was an escaped prisoner and wanted to help me to get home. He inquired[Pg 168] whether there were any prisoners at Columbia who were from Livingston County, N. Y., which he said was his native place; and I said I didn’t know where any of them were from, except I had heard Captain Cady say that he was from Rochester, N. Y., but I did not know what part of the North that was. I was more than once on the point of revealing myself to him, and now believe that had I done so, he would have assisted me. We traveled in company with them two days, and it was quite a help, to me especially.
The teams were so heavily loaded that I could not ride much, but on down grades and at the different fords we came to, he asked me to get on and rest up a little, which offer I gladly accepted, crossing the Chatuga river on the back of one of the mules. Dr. Washburn had a Columbia paper, which gave the particulars of Sheridan’s famous fight with Early in the Valley. When they went into camp the first night, Alban and I went into a barn near by, and slept until morning. Having travelled until ten o’clock and forded three streams, we were very tired and slept soundly. The next day we started on ahead of them, but they overtook us before night; as they halted early, however, we kept on and were overtaken by a man on horseback who told us he lived about five miles further on, and if we got that far, we were welcome to stay over night with him. We found his house about dark, and he gave us a good[Pg 169] supper and a good drink of apple-jack, which he fished out from under the bed.
Alban would not drink any, and tried by winks and sly nudges, to keep me from accepting a second invitation, but I didn’t take the hint worth a cent. Mr. King (for that was his name) was running an illicit distillery near where we first met him.
After we had taken two or three drinks, he became talkative, and I think my tongue was a little loose. He did not go a cent on the Confederacy, and thought the whole thing was about gone up; and he didn’t care much how soon it collapsed. If he was in my place, he would not go back into the Confederate army and I told him that I did not intend to. Before we went to bed, we were on pretty good terms with one another and the world in general, with the exception of the Confederate government. He lived near the bank of the Teroria river, and before breakfast we went down to the river, and cold as it was that morning, stripped off and took a good bath. When we went back to the house, he again fished out the demijohn from under the bed, and we took a good one for an appetizer. Alban was fidgety and nervous, for fear my tongue would run away with me, but I was as jolly as a lord, and as wary as a member of Congress.
After a good breakfast, for which he would take no pay, we crossed the Teroria river and pushed on briskly.[Pg 170] I felt just in humor for any adventure, and one soon presented itself.
We had not gone far when we saw a company of reb cavalry coming towards us from ahead. We sat down on a log beside the road and waited for them to come up, as there were no woods to slip into just there. When they came along I saluted the Captain and asked, “Whar youans going, Captain?” “Oh, just going up the road a piece,” he answered, and passed on without questioning us.
One of the men at the rear of the column stopped long enough to ask us where we’uns were from, and I told him we had just come from the valley and had had some right smart fighting with Sheridan. I then hastily detailed the fight as I had read it in the Columbia paper. He seemed flattered with the fact that he had talked with two old soldiers who had been with Earley (for they were home guards), and rode briskly forward to overtake his comrades.
We soon came to Clayton, Georgia, and the court being in session, there was quite a crowd gathered about the court house. We were debating whether or not it would be safe to keep the road, which led directly past the court house, when a mounted officer, who had evidently found some applejack somewhere, came riding down to meet us, and when he learned from us that we belonged to the 32d Georgia, and had just come from Earley’s army, wanted the latest news. We told him[Pg 171] that we had had a right smart fight with Sheridan, and taken his camp, with all of the stores and a number of pieces of artillery, but that while the boys were plundering the camp, Sheridan had surprised us and cut us all up. Having filled him as chock full of news as he was of applejack, we told him we were going to Hiawassee, and asked the most direct road.
He directed us across a common, that would take us to the road leading to Hiawassee, that would not necessitate our passing the court house, and rode back to retail the news we had given him.
After passing Clayton two or three miles, we stopped at a farm house to get dinner. As we sat down at the table, the host introduced us to the sheriff of Rabun county. We chatted pleasantly with him during the meal, but felt greatly relieved when we were once more on the road.
The next day (Sunday) we struck the Hiawassee river, and fording it, we pushed on, and just about sundown, came to a house that seemed to promise good fare, and, representing ourselves to be Confederate soldiers on a furlough, asked for supper and lodging.
The gentleman, who had the appearance of a wealthy planter, hesitated, but when I told him we wished to pay for the accommodation, he said he reckoned they could keep us, and invited us in. The family consisted of the planter—Major Carter—his wife, and one daughter, and a lady teacher, who seemed to be[Pg 172] of Northern birth. After supper the conversation naturally turned on the war, and we discussed the situation freely, and finding that he was a rank reb, we were, of course, in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war as long as there was a soldier left to fight or a dollar in the treasury. We got on swimmingly for a time. Major Carter was a man of intelligence, and was thoroughly posted on the situation, as well as the position of the two armies. In fact, I began to fear that he was too well posted to make it safe for me to attempt to tell too much of where I had served, and it soon became convenient for my inflamed legs to pain me so much that his good wife had one of the colored servants bring me some warm water out on the stoop to bathe them in.
This brought the conversation, which was getting a little too deep for me, to a close; and I asked to be shown to my room, after offering him a ten-dollar bill to take out for our supper and lodging. I told him we should probably wish to start before he was up and so preferred to pay that night. The fact was, I did not wish to meet him the next morning, after he had taken time to think over the matter, for I was quite sure his suspicions had been partially aroused. He would have taken two dollars, but could not change the ten, and I told him I would call on my way back and pay him.