A Rebel Guerrilla Killed.
The Rebel guerrilla captain who originally captured him was notoriously cruel, had burned houses, murdered Union men, and abused helpless women. He took from Jones two hundred dollars in gold, promising to forward it to his family, but never did so. After reaching home, Jones sent a message to him that he must refund the money at once, or be killed wherever found. Jones finally sought him. As they met, the guerrilla drew a revolver and fired, but without wounding his antagonist. Thereupon Jones shot him dead on his own threshold. The Union people justified and applauded the deed. Jones was afterward captain in a loyal Tennessee regiment. His father had died in a Richmond dungeon, one of his brothers in an Alabama prison, and a second had been hung by the Rebels.
The woman told us that another guerrilla, peculiarly obnoxious to the Loyalists, had disappeared early in November. A few days before we arrived, his bones were found in the woods, with twenty-one bullet-holes through his clothing. His watch and money were still undisturbed in his pocket. Vengeance, not avarice, stimulated his destroyers.
Meeting a former Fellow-Prisoner.
Here we met another of our Castle Thunder fellow-prisoners, named Guy. The Richmond authorities knew he was a Union bushwhacker, and had strong evidence against him, which would have cost him his life if brought to trial. But he, too, under an assumed name, enlisted in the Rebel army, deserted, returned to Tennessee, and resumed his old pursuit as a hunter of men with new zeal and vigor.
He and his companion were now armed with sixteen-shooter rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives. Guy's father and brother had both been killed by the guerrillas, and he was bitter and unsparing. If he ever fell into Rebel hands again, his life was not worth a rush-light. But he was merry and jocular as if he had never heard of the King of Terrors. I asked him how he now regarded his Richmond adventures. He replied:
"I would not take a thousand dollars in gold for the experience I had while in prison; but I would not endure it again for ten thousand."
Guy and his comrade were supposed to be "lying out," which suggested silent and stealthy movements; but on leaving us they went yelling, singing, and screaming up the valley, whooping like a whole tribe of Indians. Occasionally they fired their rifles, as if their vocal organs were not noisy enough. It was ludicrously strange deportment for hunted fugitives.
"Guy always goes through the country in that way," said the woman. "He is very reckless and fearless. The Rebels know it, and give him a wide field. He has killed a good many of them, first and last, and no doubt they will murder him, sooner or later, as they did his father."
Alarm About Rebel Cavalry.