The most of the way I enjoyed my journey finely. Sometimes I would lay over several days, on account of rain and bad roads. Wherever I stopped I found something to interest me. I made it a point to make myself as interesting and agreeable to the people that entertained me as possible.
I spent three weeks in Florida. There I found the people more disheartened than anywhere else in my route; in fact, resistance to the Federal army had been given up. During my stay there I spent several days with a planter by the name of Fanshaw, who lives near the coast, at St. Marks. He was formerly from the State of New York. I passed myself while there by my real name, and as a brother of General Ruggles, and represented that I was on my way home to Bolivar County, Mississippi, from Savannah, Georgia, where I had been on business pertaining to the Confederate Government. I gave him such an account of the general state of affairs all over the Confederate States that he did not doubt, in the least, the statements that I made. When I called at his house I had no intentions of remaining there long, but his hospitality was so strongly urged upon me that I accepted it to enable my horse to rest.
While staying there I was much amused by reading a story in the Natchez (Miss.) Courier concerning myself. How the paper had made its way there I can not tell. Miss Ella, a daughter of Mr. F.'s, handed me the piece to read, remarking that it was one of the curious incidents of the war. Little did she think that in presenting it to me she was making it doubly so.
The story was written by Mr. James Dugan, a friend of mine in the 14th Illinois Infantry. Sergeant Downs, of the 20th Ohio, had related to Mr. Dugan several of the incidents in my experience as scout; and from one of those he wrote a romance, in which I figured as the hero, giving instead of my full name only the initial letter to my surname, together with the name of my company and regiment. It was given to the public as a narrative of facts, and the announcement made that an extended history of my services would be forthcoming from the able pen of Captain Downs. It was first published in 1863, in the paper I have before mentioned.
Coming to me as it did, under such peculiar circumstances, it amused me exceedingly. I took good care, however, that my lady friend did not find out that I was the hero of the story. My feelings at the time can be better imagined by perusing it. It ran as follows:
"On board the magnificent steamer 'Imperial,' on her passage from St. Louis to New Orleans, in the month of October, A. D. 1860, reclining upon one of those elegantly-furnished sofas in her sumptuous cabin, might have been seen the hero of our story wrapped in a 'brown study.'
"His form was attractive and commanding; something over a medium size, and well proportioned. His features were pleasant, and his hair brown and wavy, extending in a rich profusion of glossy curls down over his shoulders. His eyes were of a deep blue, and as sharp and piercing as those of an eagle. His forehead was broad and high, imparting a look of more than usual intelligence; indeed, he was what might be called a handsome fellow, and though he has passed the age of five and twenty, he looked as fair and fresh as though but just of age. Lorain R——s (the subject of our sketch) was a resident of Ohio, but was then on his way to New Orleans on business.
"It is said that Lorain once loved a beautiful and accomplished young lady of an amiable disposition, and, withal, of no inconsiderable wealth; but upon the very day upon which they were to have been married he followed her remains to their long home. Three years had passed since then, and he had found no fair one to fill the heart thus made vacant.
"As he sits reclined upon that sofa, he is meditating upon the strange vicissitudes of life. Recollections of scenes in his own experience pass vividly before him, and, as if but yesterday, he strolls for the last time in the green meadow. Just as the declining sun is shedding his last lingering rays across the landscape, accompanied by his own angelic Belinda, and as they are about to pass the gate to her father's house, they pause for a moment, and with her soft fingers playfully twirling his glossy curls, she presses her lips to his and whispers, 'My own dear Lorain!'
"Since then three summers have passed without obliterating the blank in his heart caused by the transfer of his fair one to the spirit land, and he wonders whether, indeed, there was but one heart born whose emotions of love can soften his. Again and again he recalls the scenes of his love until his eyes are suffused with tears. Dashing them away, he starts from his seat and mingles with the gay crowd that are passengers with him.