“I perceive, gentlemen,” said he, without the slightest diminution of courtesy, “that you belong to the other side.”
I nodded an assent.
“And that you are officers?”
I nodded again.
“I presume you are prisoners then, and here on parole?”
Now, wearing a United States uniform at that time in Texas by no means proved that a man was in the United States service; it only indicated that he was a soldier. So many prisoners were in their butternut, and so many Confederates in our uniform that a Texan eye rarely looked behind the coat to distinguish the kind of soldier it covered. When, therefore, our tall friend said, “You are on the other side,” and added, “you are officers,” it was plain to us that he had made the close acquaintance of our troops in some other way than through the newspapers.
“I perceive that you are an old soldier,” I said in reply. “And I do not think you are a Texan. Allow me to ask where you are from?”
“I belong to the 1st Missouri Cavalry,” said he, “and I am from Missouri.”
“From Missouri!” I exclaimed. “Why, I was in service there myself during the first year of the war.”
The tall man and I looked steadily at each other in mutual astonishment. The same thoughts were passing through our minds, and he expressed them first and best by saying: