On the evening of the eleventh day, Wednesday, December 28, we left the kind friends with whom we had stayed for five days and four nights, gaining new vigor and inspired by new hope. Their last injunction

was:

"Remember, you cannot be too careful. We shall pray God that you may reach your homes in safety. When you are there, do not forget us, but do send troops to open a way by which we can escape to the North."

In their simplicity, they fancied Yankees omnipotent, and that we could send them an army by merely saying the word. They bade us adieu with embraces and tears. I am sure many a fervent prayer went up from their humble hearths, that Our Father would guide us through the difficulties of our long, wearisome journey, and guard us against the perils which beset and environed it.

At ten o'clock we passed within two hundred yards of a Rebel camp. We could hear the neigh of the horses and the tramp of four or five sentinels on their rounds. We trod very softly; to our stimulated senses every sound was magnified, and every cracking twig startled us.

Leaving us in the road a few yards behind, our pilot entered the house of his friend, a young deserter from the Rebel army. Finding no one there but the family, he

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SECRETED AMONG THE HUSKS.

[1864.

called us in, to rest by the log fire, while the deserter rose from bed, and donned his clothing to lead us three miles and point out a secluded path. For many months he had been "lying out;" but of late, as the Guards were less vigilant than usual, he sometimes ventured to sleep at home. His girlish wife wished him to accompany us through; but, with the infant sleeping in the cradle, which was hewn out of a great log, she formed a tie too strong for him to break. At parting, she shook each of us by the hand, saying:

"I hope you will get safely home; but there is great danger, and you must be powerful cautious."

At eleven o'clock our guide left us in the hands of a negro, who, after our chilled limbs were warmed, led us on our way. By two in the morning we had accomplished thirteen miles over the frozen hills, and reached a lonely house in a deep valley, beside a tumbling, flashing torrent.

The farmer, roused with difficulty from his heavy slumbers, informed us that Boothby's party, which had arrived twenty-four hours in advance of us, was sleeping in his barn. He sent us half a mile to the house of a neighbor, who fanned the dying embers on his great hearth, regaled us with the usual food, and then took us to a barn in the forest.

"Among

"Climb up on that scaffolding," said he. the husks you will find two or three quilts. They belong to my son, who is lying out. To-night he is sleeping with some friends in the woods."

The cold wind blew searchingly through the open barn, but before daylight we were wrapped in "the mantle that covers all human thoughts."

1864.]

WANDERING FROM THE ROAD.

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XII. Thursday, December 29.

At dark, our host, leaving us in a thicket, five hundred yards from his house, went forward to reconnoiter. Finding the coast clear, he beckoned us on to supper and ample potations of apple-brandy.

With difficulty we induced one of his neighbors to guide us. Though unfamiliar with the road, he was an excellent walker, swiftly leading us over the rough ground, which tortured our sensitive feet, and up and down sharp, rocky hills.

At two in the morning we flanked Wilkesboro, the capital of Wilkes County. To a chorus of barking dogs, we crept softly around it, within a few hundred yards of the houses. The air was full of snow, and when we reached the hills again, the biting wind was hard to breathe.

We walked about a mile through the dense woods, when Captain Wolfe, who had been all the time declar ing that the North Star was on the wrong side of us, convinced our pilot that he had mistaken the road, and we retraced our steps to the right thoroughfare.

We stopped to warm for half an hour at a negrocabin, where the blacks told us all they knew about the routes and the Rebels. Before morning we were greatly broken down, and our guide was again in doubt concerning the roads. So we entered a deep ravine in the pinewoods, built a great fire, and waited for daylight.

XIII. Friday, December 30.

After dawn, we pressed forward, reluctantly compelled to pass near two or three houses.

We reached the Yadkin River just as a young, blooming woman, with a face like a ripe apple, came gliding across the stream. With a long pole, she guided

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CROSSING THE YADKIN RIVER.

[1864.

the great log canoe, which contained herself, a pail of butter, and a side-saddle, indicating that she had started for the Wilkesboro market. Assisting her to the shore, we asked:

"Will you tell us where Ben Hanby lives?"

"Just beyond the hill there, across the river,” she replied, with scrutinizing, suspicious eyes.

66 How far is it to his house?"

"I don't know."

"More than a mile ?"

"No" (doubtfully), "I reckon not."

"Is he probably at home?"

"No!" (emphatically). "He is not! Are you the Home Guard?"

"By no means, madam. We are Union men, and Yankees at that. We have escaped from Salisbury, and are trying to reach our homes in the North.”

After another searching glance, she trusted us fully, and said:

"Ben Hanby is my husband. He is lying out. I wondered, if you were the Guard, what you could be doing without guns. From a hill near our house, the children saw you coming more than an hour ago; and my husband, taking you for the soldiers, went with his rifle to join his companions in the woods. Word has gone to every Union house in the neighborhood that the troops are out hunting deserters."

We embarked in the log canoe, and shipped a good deal of water before reaching the opposite shore. We had two sea-captains on board, and concluded that, with one sailor more, we should certainly have been hopelessly wrecked.

A winding forest-path led to the lonely house we sought, where we found no one at home, except three chil

1864.]

AMONG UNION BUSHWHACKERS.

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dren of our fair informant and their grandmother. For more than two hours we could not allay the woman's suspicions that we were Guards. They had recently been adopting Yankee disguises, deceiving Union people, and beguiling them of damaging information.

As indignantly as General Damas inquires whether he looks like a married man, we asked the cautious woman if we resembled Rebels. At last, convinced that we were veritable Yankees, she gave us breakfast, and sent one of the children with us to a sunny hillside among the pines, where we slept off the weariness and soreness caused by the night's march of sixteen miles.

At evening a number of friends visited us. As they were not merely Rebel deserters, but Union bushwhackers also, we scanned them with curiosity; for we had been wont to regard bushwhackers, of either side, with vague, undefined horror.

These men were walking arsenals. Each had a trusty. rifle, one or two navy revolvers, a great bowie knife, haversack, and canteen. Their manners were quiet, their faces honest, and one had a voice of rare sweetness. As he stood tossing his baby in the air, with his little daughter clinging to his skirt, he looked

"the mildest-mannered man,

That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat."

He and his neighbors had adopted this mode of life, because determined not to fight against the old flag. They would not attempt the uncertain journey to our lines, leaving their families in the country of the enemy. Ordinarily very quiet and rational, whenever the war was spoken of, their eyes emitted that peculiar glare which I had observed, years before, in Kansas, and which seems inseparable from the hunted man. They said: