and he greeted me cordially with, "Hello, Johnny! They've got you this time," and I told him it looked that way. The term Johnny, an abbreviation of "Johnny Reb," was often used by Union soldiers in greeting a Confederate.

From Stevenson we were carried by train to Nashville, and there confined in the state penitentiary for two days. I slept in a cold, damp cell along with deserters, "bountyjumpers," and a crowd of criminals, many of whom had a ball and chain dangling at their ankles. In this prison I contracted a cold, which developed into a severe pneumonia, the initial chill of which came on three days later, when I arrived in Camp Morton. The troops which chased us into the mountains on October 2d belonged to a brigade of cavalry under Colonel E. M. McCook,1 who was just too late to save the great train he was sent to protect. They had come up from Bridgeport by a road parallel with the one down which we were advancing in the destruction of their wagons. When they heard the wagons loaded with ammunition exploding they came through a gap in the intervening ridge and formed their line of battle facing up the valley, cutting our detachment hopelessly off from our main column.

Russell's Fourth Alabama regiment, unaided, captured this immense train. General Wheeler reported: "The number of wagons was variously estimated from eight hundred to fifteen hundred. The quartermaster in charge of the train stated that there were eight hundred six-mule wagons besides a great number of sutler's wagons. The train was guarded by a brigade of cavalry in front and a brigade of cavalry in the rear, and on the flank where we attacked were stationed two regiments of infantry." Gen1 Official Records, vol. xxx, part 1, p. 675.

eral Rosecrans, commander-in-chief of the Union army, in a despatch to Major-General Burnside, dated October 5, 1863, referring to this train, says: "Your failure to close your troops down to our left has cost five hundred wagons loaded with essentials, and Heaven only knows where the mischief will end." From my own observation, I am of the opinion that five hundred would not be very far from correct. We missed one bunch of about thirty wagons which had turned off in a narrow and not much used roadway, and were already partly toward the summit of Walden's Ridge. One of these was reported to have been the paymaster's wagon, loaded with greenbacks enough to pay off the army in Chattanooga. As to the truth of this I cannot testify. We lost two men killed in my company and eight or ten captured.

With the exception of our detachment of about twenty men (and not more than this number rode on until the last wagon was taken), which was hopelessly cut off from escape by the interposition of McCook's brigade, our losses would have been insignificant had it not been for the unfortunate discovery of a sutler's wagon loaded to the guards with brandied peaches. The driver and owner had fled at our approach, and, having sought safety by climbing up the steep side of Walden's Ridge, along the foot of which the road lay, was in all likelihood a helpless and hopeless witness of the plundering of his merchandise. The rich harvest this sutler had expected to reap when he arrived in the beleaguered fortress of Chattanooga was not to be garnered. Man only proposes; the disposition is elsewhere.

The brandy must have been very strong or our men unusually susceptible to intoxication, for quite a number became so drunk from eating these peaches that they fell

from their horses and were made] prisoners while asleep on the roadside. One officer on General Wheeler's staff suffered an impairment of co-ordination to such an extent that in a sabre duel with a Federal trooper the Union sabreur dealt him a right cut which not only unhorsed him, but cut his upper lip clear across just beneath the nose, leaving it and the attached mustache to droop an inch below the normal position. He joined our squad of prisoners at Stevenson, and was about the most dilapidated member of the group.

Of my personal experiences on this exciting day, beyond the loss of my horse a brief interview with our general was the most interesting. We had whipped everything in sight, captured the train-guard or scattered it into the woods, and I had kept on overtaking wagon after wagon for fully eight miles without stopping for a minute to hunt for something to eat. At last, seeing a big box of cheese and some crackers in one of the wagons, I dismounted, threw the bridle over a standard, clambered in, cut off a large chunk of the cheese, filled my pockets with crackers, and was just in the act of remounting my captured mule when General Wheeler galloped up, sword in hand, and said to me, "Get in your saddle and go on after the enemy." As he and I were the only Confederates in sight just then, I said, "All right, General. Have some cheese," and the private and the major-general rode on side by side down the Sequatchie Valley road "after the enemy" and munching cheese and crackers.

Fully thirty years after the war I gave a dinner in New York to a number of friends in honor of my old commander, and in introducing him I told this story as above given, seemingly to his enjoyment at the remembrance of it. My

military career practically ended on October 4, 1863. Had I thought for an instant that there would be no further exchange of prisoners, or that for sixteen weary months there was in store for me the anguish of enforced idleness and the suffering from cold, hunger, and vermin, to say nothing of the cruel indifference of our keepers, I would not have surrendered as long as I could have stood on my feet. It was a lucky thing for the officer to whom I yielded, for I could and would have killed him, notwithstanding the intervention of my comrades. It is all now of the long ago, and "all's well that ends well"; but it was a sad awakening from my soldier dream of glory.

XX

PRISON LIFE IN CAMP MORTON-HOMEWARD BOUND-JOHN

JONES

It was about the middle of October, 1863, and late at night when we arrived in the prison inclosure at Camp Morton, in the suburbs of Indianapolis. No provision had been made for "fresh fish”—the term of welcome applied to every new batch of prisoners-and we slept, or tried to sleep, through the cold night in the open air upon the ground. This was a fitting introduction to the indifference and brutality of the authorities who had succeeded the noble, generous, and beloved Colonel Owen as commander of this prison, to whose memory we ex-Confederates in later years in grateful recognition placed a memorial bust in the capitol at Indianapolis. Toward morning I was seized with a chill which lasted for several hours and ushered in a severe attack of pneumonia, from the effects of which I did not recover for many years.

As soon as it was day a fellow-prisoner, the Rev. J. G. Wilson, formerly President of the Huntsville (Alabama) Female College, requested an officer in charge to send me to a hospital, or at least put me under shelter. He was told there was no room, but was promised that the first vacancy would be held for me. This occurred, as the hospital steward afterward informed me, at 2 P.M., and an hour later I was in the dead man's bed.