I asked the boys how they liked soldiering, and whether they had ever been in any fights, and what regiment they belonged to, and various other questions, such as I supposed a citizen would naturally ask; and, finally, I inquired where they had been, and was told that they had been to Whitesville, on a scout, to see whether the Yankees had been committing any depredations on the property of the citizens. In that manner I kept up my conversation until we were within three miles of the Cold Water Creek, without having excited any suspicion but what I was all right.
I had gone as far as I cared about, and began to think up some plan by which I could make my exit from their company without exciting suspicion. To accomplish my object, I gradually fell back to the rear, and the first rise of ground that the cavalry went over, that was large enough to hide me from view until I could get a good start on my way back, I turned about and left them.
I moved along on a good fast trot, occasionally looking back to see if I was pursued. I had made about four miles, when, on looking back, I saw a squad of fifteen or sixteen cavalry in full chase after me. My sudden departure had excited their suspicions. I put the spurs to my mule and dashed ahead at the top of its speed. My pursuers gained on me. I urged my mule still harder, and still they continued to gain. My situation seemed a hopeless one. I could not outstrip them in the chase, and they were rapidly gaining on me. If captured, my flight under the circumstances would be conclusive evidence against me. Still, on I pressed, the distance between myself and pursuers growing rapidly less. My mule, too, was becoming exhausted, and my pursuers were within five hundred yards of me. I had come full three miles since I saw them giving chase. Passing a bend in the road, with a growth of small trees and brush along the fence that hid me from view, I came to a gap in the fence, through which I passed into a field. The field was covered with stubble and tall weeds. I dashed ahead at right angles with the road for about two hundred yards, when I entered a basin or depression in the surface of the ground, that in a wet time would have been a pond, but at that time it was dry. The ground was considerably lower than the surface of the field between the basin and the road. There I dismounted and sat down, and, in an instant more, I heard the tramp of horses as my pursuers passed on.
I had despaired of making my escape, but as my pursuers passed on, hope began to revive. It was then about sundown. I waited there until dark, and then mounted my mule and started on. I knew that my pursuers would soon return, and I must manage so as not to be seen. When I arrived at the place where the road turns off to the right, that goes to Davis' Mills, I turned to the left into the edge of a piece of woods, where I could see without being seen, and halted.
In a few minutes I heard my pursuers approaching, who, when they came to the corners, took the road to Davis' Mills. I remained under cover of the woods until I thought all stragglers of the party, if there should be any, had passed, and then went on, watching carefully as I went.
As I was riding along, the thought occurred to me that, perhaps, my pursuers might have mistrusted that I had turned out into the field to evade them, and had placed a picket on the bridge across Wolf River, near Lagrange, to capture me if I attempted to cross. I rode on to within two hundred yards of the bridge, and there I left my mule and went forward to reconnoiter. When within a few paces of the bridge I stopped and listened, but did not hear any thing. I moved a few feet further, and then I thought I heard a footstep. I crept up still closer, and peered forward in the black distance, and there I could see, on the bridge, the form of a man. I watched and he moved. There was no mistake about it! My fears were realized! The picket was there!
The glimmerings of hope that had lightened me up as my pursuers passed me now vanished. I was completely cornered. The only bridge besides that one was on the Davis Mills road, and my pursuers were on that road. Between the two bridges was an extensive cypress swamp, and below the bridge that I was at was another swamp still worse. The only possible way that I could see to get away from my pursuers was to cross the swamp between the two bridges. To think of the undertaking was horrible!
I crept cautiously back to my mule, mounted, and rode through a dense growth of brush to my right, until I reached the edge of the swamp, where I halted. To undertake to cross in daylight would be hazardous, and in the dark utterly impossible; so I concluded to wait until morning before making the attempt. I laid down upon the ground, with my bridle over my arm, with the venomous insects and serpents as my companions, and the intervening brush over my head and the broad canopy of heaven, curtained with black clouds, my only covering. Such surroundings are not very conducive to sleep, but exhausted nature soon yielded, and I slept, and slept soundly—so soundly that when I awoke in the morning the sun was two hours high.
The mule, to satisfy its hunger, had eaten the boughs on the bushes, around where I lay, as far as it could reach, and yet it had neither pulled away from me nor disturbed my slumbers, but had been as careful of me and manifested as much attachment for me as a faithful dog would for his master.
The mule had been presented to me by General Ross, and had been a common sharer with me in the exposures and dangers that I had experienced, and had borne me safely thus far, and was, perhaps, to be the only friendly companion to witness the end that would befall me. When I thought of my situation, and witnessed the careful attachment expressed for me by that dumb animal, I could not control my feelings, but embraced the neck of that mule with joyous affection and wept.