Severe March in the Rain.

Soon after dark it began to rain; but necessity, that inexorable policeman, bade us move on. When we approached a large plantation, leaving us behind, in a fence-corner, Thurston went forward to reconnoiter. He found the negro quarters occupied by a middle-aged man and woman. They were very busy that night, cooking for and serving the young white people, who had a pleasure-party at the master's house, within a stone's throw of the slave-cabin.

But when they learned that there were hungry Yankees in the neighborhood, they immediately prepared and brought out to us an enormous supper of fresh pork and corn-bread. It was now nine o'clock on Tuesday night, and we had eaten nothing since three o'clock Sunday afternoon, save about three ounces of bread and four ounces of meat to the man. We had that to think of which made us forget the gnawings of hunger, though we suffered somewhat from a feeling of faintness. Now, in the barn, with the rain pattering on the roof, we devoured supper in an incredibly brief period, and begged the slave to go back with his basket and bring just as much more.

About midnight the negro found time to pilot us through the dense darkness and pouring rain, back to the railroad, from which we had strayed three miles. The night was bitterly cold, and in half an hour we were as wet as if again shipwrecked in the Mississippi.

For five weary miles we plodded on, with the stinging rain pelting our faces. Then we stopped at a plantation, and found the negroes. They told us it was unsafe to remain, several white men being at home, and no good hiding-place near, but directed us to a neighbor's. There the slaves sent us to a roadside barn, which we reached just before daylight.

Escaping Prisoners fed by Negroes in their Master's Barn.

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