On my arrival in Ohio, I found that my reputation as a scout and spy had preceded me, and where-ever I went I could scarcely make my appearance on the street without having a crowd gather around me, eager to hear my experience in Dixie. I was pressed with invitations to call upon people whom I had never seen or heard of before. Circumstances, beyond my control, rendered my position an embarrassing one. We were to have been paid our bounty, back pay, and veteran bounty at Columbus, O., but, by the carelessness of the commissary of musters that mustered me, my veteran papers were lost, so that I drew no pay, and, consequently, my clothes were ragged and my pocket empty. Embarrassing as this was to me, it seemed to have very little influence with others, and ladies in silk would listen with intense interest to the narratives of the ragged soldier.
I am proud that I live in a country where patriotism, valor, and services rendered to the Government, are more highly appreciated than dress or a lavish expenditure of money. My war-worn clothes did not diminish the number of my friends and admirers, otherwise my veteran visit would have been an unhappy one.
In the course of my visiting, I spent an evening at a farm-house, where was boarding the school-mistress of the district school. She was a lady aged forty-two years—my age exactly—and would usually be called an "old maid." Her tongue was as flexible as mine; indeed, I found it hard to get the start of her. At first, we were shy of each other; she was afraid of soiling her silk, and I was afraid to show my rags. Our seats were at opposite sides of the room. Gradually, however, our interest in each other's stories increased, and our distance apart as gradually diminished, until, finally, we were sitting side by side, and became the center of attraction for the evening by our narratives, alternately told—hers of school-teaching experience and mine of army experience. At last she said: "Mr. Ruggles, I should like to know how you learned to practice the art of deception, as you did, among the Southern people. They are not all fools, are they?"
"No, ma'am, they are not all fools."
"Really, then, I should like to know how you learned it."
"I'll tell you, if you will permit me to do so."
"I should like to know."
"I learned it in paying my respects to old maids."
"There! there! that will do!" and away she went to the opposite side of the room, much to the amusement of the company present. For the remainder of the evening I had to keep at a respectable distance from her.
Our veteran furloughs having expired, we reported to General Leggett, at Cairo, Illinois, who sent me to Clifton, Tennessee, to report to General M. F. Force for duty. He sent me to Pulaski, a distance of sixty-two miles, with dispatches. A squad of twenty men, under command of a Lieutenant from a battalion of Tennessee cavalry, was sent with me as an escort. The entire battalion of cavalry—in all, four hundred men—had been in the Confederate service. They were captured at the taking of Fort Donelson, and had been released by the Federal authorities, and had enlisted in the Federal service. They had been running the courier line to Pulaski, but had never got through with their dispatches. The men of the battalion lived in the country lying between Clifton and Pulaski.