Table of Contents added by the transcriber:
| Introductory | [7] |
| War Memories | [9] |
| Appendix: How and Where I Was Captured | [58] |
| Addenda | [59] |
| List of Captured | [60] |
ESCAPE
FROM THE
CONFEDERACY
Overpowering the Guards—Midnight Leap From
a Moving Train—Through Swamps
and Forest—Blood Hounds—
Thrilling Events.
B. F. HASSON,
Late Lieut. Ringgold Battalion (22d. Pa. Vol. Cav.)
Entered according to Act of Congress.
Sept 26, 1900
To the comrades of the Ringgold Cavalry and the relatives and friends of the boys who suffered and died at Richmond and Andersonville, this booklet is dedicated.
"Across the years, full rounded to many score,
Since advancing peace, with her olive wand,
Returns the sunshine to our desolate land,
Come thronging back memories of the war.
Again the drum's beat and the cannon's roar,
And patriot fires by every breeze are fanned,
And pulses quicken with a purpose grand,
As manhood's forces swell to larger store.
Again the camp, the field, the march, the strife,
The joy of victory, the bitter pain
Of wounds or sore defeat; the anguish rife,
And tears that fall for the unnumbered slain,
And homes, where darkened is the light of life,
All these the echoing bugle brings again."
INTRODUCTORY.
I have been so often urged by old army comrades, as well as other friends, to publish the facts contained in the following pages in a convenient shape for preservation, that I have concluded to comply with their wishes, and now present them in this form. Many of the less important details have been omitted, as well with a view of preventing the story from becoming tiresome as of getting it within the limits of space it was intended it should occupy. While the experience was attended with trials and suffering, I wish to assure the reader that it was nothing more than was endured by hundreds of other boys who saw service in the War of the Great Rebellion. I would not go through it again for all the world, and yet I would not like to lose the satisfaction I enjoy in the knowledge of my success in overcoming so many seemingly insurmountable difficulties. It is a plain narration of facts, and is written without any effort to overdraw or embellish. I hand it over to the friends and comrades who have been urging me to publish it, in the hope that it will help to fill up an idle moment.
B. F. Hasson.
