“But you can’t stay in Nashville. This city is within the military lines, and no one can come in, stay here, or go out of this town, without a pass. You have come into these lines in disguise as a soldier, but you are now known. So if you will not go willingly, you will be sent out in charge of a provost marshal. That is, you will be taken under arrest by the government officers to Louisville, and left there. Then what will you do? You are not strong enough to do hard work, and I doubt if you could get any work there to do.”
“I’m awfully sorry I can’t go back into the army.”
“You certainly cannot, the case is too well known; and recruiting officers have been warned, and will be on the lookout hereafter. If you will give your name and place of residence, the government will send you home, and the trip will not cost you anything.”
“If I tell you my name, and the place I wish to go to, will you keep it a secret?”
“I will be obliged to tell the officers.”
“Will you ask them not to publish it?”
“I certainly will; and I will never tell it to any one, except the officers from whom I will get the order for pass and transportation.”
“I will trust you,” she said; and she whispered her name and residence. Two days after that she was on her way to her home in the Northwest.
I never knew what became of her.