At Huntsville, Alabama, the ague came on me so bad that I was unable for duty. Leaving my horse with a scout that had run with me considerable, I went to the hospital. I did not like the looks of things there, so I got sent on to Chattanooga, where I remained four days, at the end of which time I felt a little better, and resolved to go back to the front. Hospital discipline and I could not agree very well. I went to a member of General McPherson's staff and told him what I wanted, and he gave me a pass to report to General Sherman, wherever I could find him. I came up with him just at the opening of the Buzzard's Roost fight, in which I took a part. From there I was with the advanced guards until we came to Resaca, at which place I assisted, on the right flank, in fighting Wheeler's cavalry. I kept along with the advance of the army until we arrived at Kingston, where General Leggett's command formed a junction with us. There I found my horse. From there I had nothing of particular interest to do until the rebs were driven to the Kenesaw Mountain.
At that place General McPherson sent for me, and asked me if I thought I could go into Marietta and get back again. I told him I could, if allowed to take my own plans to accomplish it, which he said I might do. He told me to go in and find out whether the battery that commands the approach along the railroad is a masked one, and count the guns; see whether any State militia were there, and whether any part of the line was held by them, and whether they were mixed in with other troops. I was to examine the enemy's first line of works, and see how far they extended; and how deep the ditches were, and whether I thought it practicable to carry them by assault. He gave me fifty dollars in greenbacks to defray my expenses, and sent me to Major-General Logan for a Confederate uniform and some Confederate money. Thus equipped, I started out the next day on horseback. I passed along our lines to the extreme left, to General Garrard's head-quarters, where I left my papers, and procured a pass through the lines. I passed the vedettes about noon, and proceeded on in an easterly direction until I reached Canton, sixteen miles from General McPherson's head-quarters. There I staid all night. In the morning I resumed my journey, on a road leading south, and halted for the night at a small village on the Chattahoochee River, called Roswell Factories, twenty-eight miles from Canton. The next morning a division of South Carolina cavalry came along from the east, just as I was ready to start out. I fell in and attached myself to company A, of the 1st South Carolina, and represented myself as belonging to the 11th Texas Cavalry—which I knew was in our front when I started out—going to join my command. The explanation proved satisfactory, and I kept along with them till we reached Marietta, a distance from Roswell Factories of eighteen miles. Then I left them, under pretense of going to my own regiment, and went north along the railroad, until I came to the battery that I was directed to visit. It contained twelve large guns well masked. I then turned to the right and rode along the first line of intrenchments. About eighty rods from the masked battery I found a six-gun battery of small guns, and about eighty rods further on was another six-gun battery of small guns.
About midway between the two six-gun batteries, I came upon a small squad of militia that had been digging a spur from the main ditch for a rifle-pit. One of the party stepped out of a pit that he had just completed, and for a moment contemplated the result of his labor, and then said: "Nary a Yankee is gwine to come up thar; thar is whar I'll stay, and thar is whar I'll die!" When we came in possession of the place, however, we found no dead bodies "thar."
Down under the hill from the six-gun batteries, toward Marietta, I found a large force of State militia, who were holding the right of the rebel lines by themselves. There was nothing military in their appearance. Their camp was without regularity, and filthy in the extreme. Many of them had their families with them, and some of them had cows tied to their wagons. The dog and cat were not left behind. The tongues of their wagons usually pointed outward, and boards laid across from one wagon-tongue to another served them as tables. Decrepit old men and little boys, women and babies, white and black, were there. The various kinds and calibers of small arms were as numerous and different as the individuals that carried them. I thought to myself that it would be a fine place to throw a few big shells. It would have created a panic, at a trifling expense, that would have eclipsed any thing in the history of the rebellion.
The ditches of the first line I found to be four feet deep and six feet wide. A little to the right and front of the militia, I found a brigade of Texas cavalry, composed, in part, of the 11th and 3d Texas Regiments; two other Texas regiments made up the brigade. I went to the Orderly Sergeant of company A, of the 11th Texas, and told him that I belonged to company A of the 1st South Carolina Cavalry, and that my regiment had just come in that day, and that I had got separated from my command, and would like to stay with him over night, and then hunt up my regiment in the morning. He went to the Colonel and asked permission to keep me, which was granted. The Colonel of the 11th Texas was in command of the brigade.
In the morning the brigade prepared to make a demonstration upon General Wilder's command; so I told the orderly that I would go along and see the fun. The command moved out a short distance and then halted. Just then an orderly rode up and handed the Colonel a dispatch, which, when he had read, he sent the whole command back to camp except the company I was with; with that he said he would go out and capture a Yankee vedette. We rode on until we came to a narrow ridge of ground. As we were rising this, and just as we had reached its summit, we unexpectedly received five shots from Federal vedettes, which killed the Colonel and two privates. The command immediately broke to the rear and fled toward camp. I broke back with them until we reached the foot of the hill, when I turned to my right, and went up the hollow, I should judge about three hundred yards, and again ascended the ridge, and crossed to a little brook that flowed along the base of the hill, and crossed the road between the vedettes and where the Colonel was killed. A little below me, in the brook, was a Federal soldier, engaged in washing his face. His hat and gun were lying upon the bank. He was but a mere boy. Seeing me approach, he seized his gun, cocked it, and raised it to his face, when I called to him, "Hold on, my little man, I am a Federal soldier; don't shoot me!"
"Well, then, come in out of the wet! Don't you try to get away; if you do I'll bore you!"
The little fellow kept his piece leveled at me until I came up, and then marched me away to the reserve. He was so elated with his capture that he forgot his hat, and marched me in without it.
From the reserve I was taken to General Wilder's head-quarters, and then to Colonel Miller's, where my horse was taken from me. From there I was taken to the corral of rebel prisoners, near General Garrard's head-quarters, and turned in. I sat down upon a block of wood, near the entrance to the inclosure, and leaned my head upon my hands. I had been there but a moment, when a prisoner, discovering that I was a fresh arrival, stepped up and said, "To what command do you belong?"
"Clear out, and don't bother me," I replied; "I'm mad now."