Well, I crossed this field again, determined to lay by until clear weather, and when night sat in the stars and moon shone, which helped me along until in a few days I came to the Iron and Doe mountain. I had traveled for several days with nothing to eat but hard corn, and as another day began to dawn I came to a barn back in the field from the house that seemed to be near Iron mountain. I stayed here, intending to go again in the evening. I saw a boy about ten years old come near the barn to get an old gray horse. Then I saw a middle aged lady go with a cart to milk. Oh, how the pangs of hunger again bothered me. Well late in the afternoon, about four or five o’clock, I saw no one but the little boy and a girl about fifteen years old. They seemed to be afraid of me, and well they might be, for I had long, uncut hair of nearly half a year’s growth, and was a sad looking sight. These good children gave me a dish of bread and milk to stay my poor, weak stomach until their mother came home, and very soon I learned that this woman’s husband was in the Union army at Knoxville, Tennessee. I stayed here concealed in the corn husks for these days, and it was quite bad weather, but how many hours I sat in the house and told them of the suffering of prisoners in southern prisons.
Now the time had come for me to again be on my journey. When I got ready to go it seemed hard to part with such kind friends who had done so much for me, and something that I felt I would never be able to repay in this world, but I bid them a kind farewell. This good lady told me to follow along the mountains until I came to the mountain trail and then I was to follow this across the mountain. She told me I would come to the trail in about four miles from her place. Then after I had crossed the Iron and Doe mountain it would take me into, I think, Johnson county, Tennessee. Well after leaving this place I thought that I had crossed one mountain on my own hook and could do so again. So after going about two miles came to the conclusion that I could turn to the right and climb up the mountain until I struck trail, and did so. I climbed one range after another, as I thought, when it began to get cloudy, and I well remember that the woman told me it was fourteen miles across this mountain. Now when the fowls were crowing for daybreak what was my surprise to find myself back to the very house that I had just left, and had to go clear up to the door before I could be convinced that it was the place I had left that evening. I did not want them to know that I did not follow their directions. So I just started off as fast as my poor weary legs could carry me, and before day had the satisfaction of knowing that I had struck the mountain trail. I will say right here that my kind friend told me to be sure to pass the third house before attempting to stop, and then I would find good Union people. As soon as I got to this mountain trail it commenced to snow and blow very hard, and oh, how I suffered. I am not able to describe here what I experienced and my tongue seems too short to tell it, but, dear reader, just imagine yourself in my stead, surrounded by rebels on every side, and in a strange country, and clad with an old woolen shirt nearly in tatters and your drawers with one leg gone to the knee, and you can form some idea of what I had to put up with in this cold storm, and a mere walking skeleton at that. I had an average weekly fare of corn hoecake and bacon, and that not averaging once a week.
Well, I had been told when I got by the third house that it would be safe to stop. The storm was so severe that I made a mistake and stopped at the third house, and as fate would have it this was the very one that I should have shunned. Here I found a rebel captain from the Eleventh Virginia Cavalry, home on a furlough, and when I knocked and he let me in it must have been three or four o’clock in the morning. I told him I had been directed there by a friend and he seemed to be all right, and placed a feather bed on the hearth of an old-fashioned fireplace, or close to it, and it was not many minutes before I was fast asleep, and really I imagined that I was at home on one of my own mother’s cots, but what was my surprise when I awakened to find myself in the hands of a rebel captain, in full rebel uniform, with bars on his collar. Truly I felt surprised. His wife told me as soon as I arose that I ought to have gone to the next house and there would have found her own folks, who were good Union people. Her husband, the old captain, tried to stop her talk, but it seemed of no avail. She told him if he did not let me go that she would go home. He told me to sit and eat some hoecake and bacon, for he was going to turn me over to the home guards. I felt so bad to think that I was again in the hands of my enemy. I told him that I could not eat, but he commanded very fiercely for me to come, and the look of his wife told me that he needed petting. So I went and ate my supper—not my supper, but dinner, I might choose to call it—but could not eat much, and drank a little corn coffee, and how many tears and such pleading, both on my part and the part of his kind wife, to let me go! At last when pleading ceased and his wife told him that if he did not let me go that she would go home and there remain, with many bitter curses on his lips he started off, with me tagging along after him, down again toward the foot of the mountain. I looked over his side arms and it occurred to me that he had no gun of any kind, nothing but a sword to guard me. So I lagged behind, pretending that I could hardly walk, and I took a good look at his long legs, for he was over six feet tall, and then I started up the side of the mountain with the rebel in full pursuit. I still continued to run the best I could up among the rocks and brush that grew thick on this mountain side. Still the rebel continued to pursue me for some time, when finally he went back.
Well I kept on for some length of time, until it had gotten to be nearly night. I finally came to the mountain trail that I had been on when I stopped at the rebel captain’s place. I had in all of this day’s rambles traveled in no direct line, but had put in a good part of the day.
I had not gone far before I came to a log cabin, and here found two women. It had snowed two or three inches the night before, and during the day the sun had come out warm, and in the woods a man could be tracked. It seems that the rebel captain had gone back and got help to pursue my trail, and when I stopped at the log cabin and asked for something to eat they gave me a lunch and told me that the captain’s place was not more than six or seven miles from where I was, and they told me that I had better go to a barn which was back in the lot just a short distance from the house and conceal myself in a large quantity of straw that was in the barn. This barn was built of logs. So I went and crawled down in the northeast corner, clear down to the bottom. Now I had heard of crawling into a hole and drawing the hole in after you, so I tried to fill the hole up after me the best I could, and none too soon either, before there came three mounted men, one the captain. They tried to make these two women tell where I had gone. These women had husbands in our army at Knoxville, Tennessee, and I think these Union women would have died before they would have revealed my whereabouts. Soon these men came to the barn, looked all through it, and it seemed as though they would dig in the corner where I was and find me, but they went away without finding me, and again tried to find out for certain from these women whether they had seen me, for they had tracked me through the timber to the clearing, but when they came to the clearing the snow was gone. These rebels soon went back in the direction that I had come, and I went to the house and again started on my way, it now being dark, to see if I could not succeed in getting across this mountain. It did seem as though this was the hardest part of my journey, for after traveling all night until nearly morning, I lost a good share of the time from the mountain trail. What was my surprise to find myself again in the hands of a rebel guerilla. I had come around in front of a newly constructed log building, and just as I did so I saw a man in full rebel uniform seated on an old box mending a pair of boots. He perceived what a plight I was in for dress, and as he heard me talk he began to ask me a good many questions in regard to where I was from, and he told me about his being in the rebel army and deserting, and about his parents being good Union people. After he had talked for some time I really thought he was a good Union man, and told him of my escape from prison. Then I told him where I was from, and that my birth place was in Erie county, Pennsylvania. After we had talked some little time he wanted to know if I ever worked at shoemaking. I told him that I had, and that my father worked at the trade as long as I could remember. So he had me mend up his boots, which I did, thinking that his wife would soon be home and get something to eat. Now this was one of the worst sights for poverty that I had seen in all my travels, for it did not seem as though this man had five pounds of corn meal in this newly built hut. In one end there was a very rudely constructed fireplace, and I failed to find anything inside of the place to answer for a bed, except some old rags and a little straw in one corner. The day was nearly half gone when I had finished mending his boots, and he seemed to be very well pleased, when I told him that it did not seem as though his wife would be back very soon, of whom he had spoken. He had told me that as soon as she came she would get something for us to eat, but I still insisted on going. So I started to go, and just as soon as I made away he reached behind the door and got out a double-barreled shot gun and brought it to bear on me. He told me to stop or he would have to shoot. I thought how soon my friend had turned to a foe. I found that I was again in the hands of an enemy. As soon as I went back to him he called very loudly for his mother to come up to his place. It seemed that his folks lived about a hundred yards or more away, just across the woods. Soon his poor old mother came running up to the house and asked him what was the matter. He wanted her to stay with the children while he went away with me. Then she looked at me and wanted to know where he was going. He told her that I was a Yankee, right from Pennsylvania and that he was obliged to take me and turn me over to the home guards. He would shoot or hang me without any trial whatever. Then she told him that he had deserted from the Confederate army himself and would be just as liable to arrest as I was, but he didn’t seem to care how much she talked to him. Oh, so selfish was he to accomplish his end! He wanted his mother to stay with the two children while he went away with me. Then his mother wanted to know who I was and I told her all I had done for her son, and how I had waited after mending his boots, and how he was inclined to want to shoot me for the kind act I had shown him. “Well, mother,” he said, “will you stay here with the children until I come back?” “No sir, I will not do it, nor will I ever do anything for you if you do not let this poor starving creature go,” she said. “No, mother, I could not do it, but if you will take the children home with you I will go down and let father see my prisoner, so come along,” and he made me walk right in front of his double-barreled shot gun, and was very careful to tell me if I undertook to run that he would have to shoot me. In this way we went to a corn field, about a half mile from his father’s place, and here we found about eight or ten women and men husking corn. Advancing up to his father this “William,” as they called him, said: “Father, here is a real Yankee, right from Pennsylvania.” “What part of Pennsylvania are you from?” asked the father. I told him from Erie county. “Well,” he said, “my boy here was born in that state, in Crawford county. Well, how do you do? I am very glad to see you. William, what have you got that gun for?” “Why, father, don’t you know that I took a hard oath to serve my country?” “Yes, you took an oath, my poor boy, but deserted the Southern service, knowing that your poor father was a Northern Union man. Yes, yes, you took a wonderful oath, but, William, you must let this man go.” All the talk the poor old man could say to his son was of no avail, and now his kind brother plead with him. This boy was only seventeen years old. He had lost his right arm above the elbow. Then came, last of all, his sisters, and if ever I have heard pleading for one’s life it seemed that these poor souls did it. It seemed that all this man’s aim was to try his firearms on me, for after a long talk with his young brother and sisters, the brother came to me and told me that the only way that William would release me was for me to start off a little distance and then run. He said William would probably shoot at me and that he was afraid it would mean death to me very soon. The brother and his two sisters came back shortly, and the former told me what he had concluded to do. He allowed that he would just get off a short distance and then I must get up and run. Then William would turn and shoot at me, and I must run all the faster. He started and walked off about ten rods and I saw that he did not intend to go any further. So I arose as quickly as possible from a shock of corn I had been husking and started for a very steep bluff which was almost straight down, and it did seem as though I fairly flew down this hill so rapid was my flight. Dear reader, if you was never compelled to flee from a foe with a gun and then to be shot at, you can imagine the plight I was in. Now I want to say right here that in eternity I expect to meet this same man, and I don’t want him to come up before me and say: “You wrote a tale, away back there, against me that you scattered broadcast which was untrue.”
Now if I never complete this tale of my sad life, or if I do, I just ask God to direct my pen that I might not purposely insert one word that is not true, to the best of my knowledge. I do praise God from the depth of my heart that my faith is in Him.
As I was saying, I ran down this steep bluff, and just before I reached the foot of it there came the discharge of my pursuer’s gun, and a rain of buckshot flew all around me. I was very thankful that they did not hit me. William, as they called him, told me that he just fired at me so as to clear himself from the hands of the rebels. It did seem as though he should have given me some food before putting me up for a target. His deceiving me while fixing his footwear seems to convince me all the more that he meant to do me harm. After firing the shot gun at me he buried his brother’s side arms, which consisted of a large horse pistol, which he carried with him. After firing two shots from the shotgun, he still continued to follow me for at least a mile and a half, until I hid in a thick foliage of laurel brush. He came within twenty yards of my concealment, calling for me to show up and it would be all right. I could not believe him, for I had lost all confidence in him.
Now that night about nine o’clock I had to pass this same man’s house. I found him singing and rocking his little “Jeff”—his boy whom he told me he had named after Jefferson Davis. Oh, how the pangs of hunger commenced to tell on me at this time!
Right here I would like to say that during the conversation I had with the younger brother, who had lost one of his arms, he told me how he had been taken prisoner near Big Round Top at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and of being in the care of men belonging to the Fifth Corps, and how well he had been cared for. He told me that his arm was amputated at this place.
As I was saying, the traitor was singing and rocking his little “Jeff” as I passed by his place. I remember that he told me about his brother living about a mile ahead on the mountain trail. So when I came there I thought I would stop and let myself be known, but I did not do so. I went to a cool spring house near by and found there some nice milk and a piece of corn bread which I was very thankful to take possession of.