I told the Colonel that it was only a few rods to the doctor's house; so he brought them along to the house, where they were turned over to my care. I now discovered, for the first time, that there were several persons chained to the trees in the little grove behind the house. Leaving my prisoners with a guard, I went to find out who they were. I found that they had iron collars around their necks, to which the chains were made fast. They said they were Union people, and lived in the country about there, and that they had fled from conscription, and Doctor Davis had hunted them down with bloodhounds, and then chained them there. I went to the doctor and asked him who he had got chained up in the grove. He said, "They are Confederate soldiers that have deserted their regiments. I captured them, and fastened them that way for safe-keeping, until I could return them to their commands."
I made him give me his keys, and then I unlocked the Union men, and put one of the iron collars on Doctor Davis' neck, and locked him to the hind end of one of the wagons. The doctor's brother cried, and said he would rather see him shot than treated that way, and begged of me to let him go. I told him that such treatment was no worse for rebs than it was for good Union men. I had hardly stepped away from the doctor when the Union men pitched into him, and I guess they would have killed him in a very few minutes if I had not interfered. I was very sorry afterward that I didn't let them do him justice.
We loaded the fifty-six wagons with oats, corn, and bacon, from the doctor's plantation, and then burned every thing that was left. While the wagons were being loaded, some Indians that lived near by came to us, and seeing that I had the doctor chained, said: "Bad man; very bad man. Be glad he's gone."
As soon as I reached camp, I reported to General McPherson who I had captured. He said, "Doctor Davis is notorious for his cruelty to loyal people. Bring your prisoner in."
While I was gone for the prisoner, General Sherman and General Logan came over, and were there when I entered with him. General Sherman asked him a few questions, and then gave him a most severe upbraiding for his barbarous cruelty. When the Generals had all given him a piece of their minds, he was turned over to me to take care of, with permission to kill him if I wanted to.
The next morning I took him out into the woods alone, to see what I could do toward scaring him. I chained him to a tree, and then, drawing my revolver, told him that I was going to kill him. He begged of me to spare his life.
"Yes," said I, "the ox is yours now; why didn't you think of that when loyal men begged of you for mercy? You have no time to beg; you had better go to praying."
He plead and cried, and finally prayed. As much as he deserved death, I hadn't the heart to kill him; so I returned him to his place behind the wagon. He was made to travel all the way to Vicksburg with the collar and chain fast to his neck. Sometimes the driver would stop his team, and wait till the teams ahead would go three or four hundred yards. Then he would crack up his team, and make the doctor run to keep up, and, while running, he would have to hold on to the chain with both hands, to keep it from dragging him by the neck. At Vicksburg he was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to confinement on Johnson's Island.
When the army arrived at Jonesboro, on its return, General McPherson sent me, with a squad of nine men, into the country to hunt up forage. We were all mounted. When we had gone about eight miles to the north-west, we came to a small stream that flowed within deep perpendicular banks, and a few yards beyond the stream we came to a house, where we dismounted. I went to the stable in search of horses and mules. On returning to the yard, in front of the house, I found my men gathered in a circle around a young lady that had come out of the house. She was dressed extravagantly gay and rich, evidently in expectation of a visit from somebody. Her gay appearance had had something to do in gathering the men around her.
"Boys," said I, "don't you know better than to huddle together in that way for bushwhackers to shoot at? One shot would kill two or three of you."