466

[1864.

Two UNION SOLDIERS "LYING OUT." "When the Rebels let us alone, we let them alone; when they come out to hunt us, we hunt them! They know that we are in earnest, and that before they can kill any one of us, he will break a hole in the ice large enough to drag two or three of them along with him. At night we sleep in the bush. When we go home by day, our children stand out on picket. They and our wives bring food to us in the woods. When the Guards are coming out, some of the Union members usually inform us beforehand; then we collect twenty or thirty men, find the best ground we can, and, if they discover us, fight them. But a number of skirmishes have taught them to be very wary about attacking us."

In this dreary mode of life they seemed to find a certain fascination. While we took supper at the house of one of them, eight bushwhackers, armed to the teeth, stood outside on guard. For once, at least, enjoying what Macbeth vainly coveted, we took our meal in peace.

Two of them were United States volunteers, who had come stealthily home on furlough, from our army in Tennessee. They were the first Union soldiers we had seen at liberty for nearly two years. Their faces were very welcome, and their worn, soiled uniforms were to our eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue. Our friends urged us to remain, one of them saying:

"The snow is deep on the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies; the Rebels can easily trace you; the guerrillas are unusually vigilant, and it is very unsafe to attempt crossing the mountains at present. I started for Knoxville three weeks ago, and, after walking fifty miles, was compelled to turn back. Stay with us until the snow is gone, and the Guards less on the alert. We will each of us take two of you under our special charge, and feed and shelter you until next May, if you desire it."

1864.]

Two ESCAPING REBEL DESERTERS.

467

The Blue Ridge was still twenty-five miles away, and we determined to push on to a point where we could look the danger, if danger there were, directly in the face. The bushwhackers, therefore, piloted us through the darkness and the bitter cold for seven miles. At midnight, we reached the dwelling of a Union man. He said:

"As the house is unsafe, I shall be compelled to put you in my barn. You will find two Rebel deserters sleeping there."

The barn was upon a high hill. We burrowed among the husks, at first to the infinite alarm of the deserters, who thought the Philistines were upon them. While we shivered in the darkness, they told us that they had come from Petersburg-more than five hundred miles-and been three months on the journey. They had found friends all the way, among negroes and Union men. Ragged, dirty, and penniless, they said, very quietly, that they were going to reach the Yankee lines, or die in the attempt.

Before daylight our host visited us, and finding that we suffered from the weather, placed us in a little warm storehouse, close beside the public road. To our question, whether the Guards had ever searched it, he replied:

"Oh, yes, frequently, but they never happened to find anybody."

After we were snugly ensconced in quilts and cornstalks, Davis said:

"

"What an appalling journey still stretches before us! I fear the lamp of my energy is nearly burned out."

I could not wonder at his despondency. For several years he had been half an invalid, suffering from a spinal affection. For weeks before leaving Salisbury, he was often compelled, of an afternoon, to lie upon his bunk of

468

AN ENERGETIC INVALID.

[1864.

straw with blinding headache, and every nerve quivering with pain. "Junius" and myself frequently said: "Davis's courage is unbounded, but he can never live to walk to Knoxville."

The event proved us false prophets. Nightly he led our party-always the last to pause and the first to start. His lamp of energy was so far from being exhausted that, before he reached our lines, he broke down every man in the party. I expect to suffer to my dying day from the killing pace of that energetic invalid.

XIV. Saturday, December 31.

Spent all this cold day and night sleeping in the quilts and fodder of the little store-house. At evening, Boothby's party went forward, as the next thirty-five miles were deemed specially perilous.

There's but a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins pinned together and thrown over the shoulders.

KING HENRY IV.

OUR emaciated condition, hard labor, and the bracing mountain air, conspired to make us ravenous. In quantity, the pork and corn-bread which we devoured was almost miraculous; in quality, it seemed like the nectar and ambrosia of the immortal gods. It was far better adapted to our necessities than the daintiest luxuries of civilization. In California, Australia, and Colorado goldmines, on the New Orleans levée, and wherever else the most trying physical labor is to be performed, pork and corn-bread have been found the best articles of food.

The Loyalists were all ready to feed, shelter, and direct us, but reluctant to accompany us far from their homes. They would say:

"You need no guides; the road is so plain, that you cannot possibly miss it."

But midnight journeys among the narrow lanes and obscure mountain-paths had taught us that we could miss any road whatever which was not inclosed upon both sides by fences too high for climbing. Therefore, we insisted upon pilots.

Fortunately, I had left Salisbury with a one-hundreddollar United States note concealed under the hem of each leg of my pantaloons, just above the instep, and two more sewn in the lining of my coat. I had in my portmonnaie

470

IMMINENT PERIL OF UNION CITIZENS.

[1865,

fifty dollars in Northern bank-notes, five dollars in gold, and a hundred dollars in Confederate currency. Davis brought away about the same amount. We should have left it with our fellow-prisoners, but for the probability of being recaptured and confined, where money would serve us in our extremest need. Now it enabled us to remunerate amply both our white and black friends. Sometimes the mountaineers would say:

"We do not do these things for money. We have fed and assisted hundreds of refugees and escaping prisoners, but never received a cent for it."

Those whom they befriended were usually penniless. We appreciated their kindness none the less because fortunate enough to be able to recompense them. They were unable to resist the argument that, when our forces came, they would need "green-backs" to purchase coffee.

Every man who gave us a meal, sheltered us in his house or barn, pointed out a refuge in the woods, or directed us one mile upon our journey, did it at the certainty, if discovered, of being imprisoned, or forced into the Rebel army, whether sick or well, and at the risk of having his house burned over his head. In many cases, discovery would have resulted in his death by shooting, or hanging in sight of his own door.

During our whole journey we entered only one house inhabited by white Unionists, which had never been plundered by Home Guards or Rebel guerrillas. Almost every loyal family had given to the 'Cause some of its nearest and dearest. We were told so frequently—“My father was killed in those woods;" or, "The guerrillas shot my brother in that ravine," that, finally, these tragedies made little impression upon us. The mountaineers never seemed conscious that they were doing any heroic or self-sacrificing thing. Their very sufferings