"What is that for?"
"For going through the country and deceiving the people, and representing yourself as a citizen of Tennessee."
"I have never been through the country, except as I have been sent on scouts by my commanding officer."
"I'll scout you, d—n you! I'll scalp you! What's the names of the men that belong to your band?"
"I haven't got any band."
"What's the names of the men that were out with you?"
I then gave him a list of the men that accompanied me, and was then ordered to be put in the guard-house. The court-room of the court-house was used as a guard-house. The Provost-marshal's office was in one of the lower rooms of the court house.
The Provost-marshal had all the men that had been with me arrested, and when he had got us all together in the guard-house, we were marched, under guard, into his office. Addressing us, he said:
"There has been a great deal of stealing and robbing going on in the country about here, lately, and I believe that you are the men that have done it, and I mean to make an example of you, and I shall use my utmost endeavors to have every man of you shot."
"What have we done," I inquired, "that you should have such an awful antipathy against us?"