As we approached Murfreesboro’ I met a genial, daring soldier, one Major Hill, whom I had seen before. He had with him a hundred and fifty cavalry. “Where are you going so late by night?” I said.
He replied, “I am after that infernal scoundrel, --- ---. My scouts have found out pretty closely his range. I am going to divide my men into tens and scatter them over the country and then close in.”
“Major,” I replied, “I will tell you just where to lay your hand at once, heavy on him. Do you know Grindstone Knob and a white house with green windows at its foot?”
“I do.”
“Well, be there at exactly eleven to-night, and you’ll get him. I have been there and learned it from the niggers.”
“Well, I declare that you are a good scout, Mr. Leland!” cried the Major in amazement. “What can I do to thank you?”
“Well, Major Hill,” I said, “I have one thing to request: that is, if you get ---, don’t parole him. Shoot him at once; he is a red-handed murderer.”
“I will shoot him,” said the Major, and rode forth into the night with his men. But whether he ever got --- I never knew, though according to the calculations of the Coltons, who were extremely experienced in such matters, “Massa ---” had not more than one chance in a thousand to escape, and Hill was notoriously a good guerilla-hunter and a man of his word.
I believe that at the plantation our men had camped out.
At Murfreesboro’ we returned them to the general, and I took the Coltons to a hotel, which was so very rough that I apologised for it, while Baldwin said it seemed to him to be luxurious beyond belief, and that it was the first night for eighteen months in which he had slept in a bed. In the morning I wanted a spur, having lost one of mine, and there was brought to me a large boxful of all kinds of spurs to choose from, which had been left in the house at one time or another during the war.