I showed him my paper from General Thompson, and said to him: "You know Mr. Edmondson, who keeps the hotel at Enterprise, I hired a horse and buggy from him two years ago to go out to Garlandsville. I am sure I can get the money and leave it anywhere you say, if you will let me pass on." He was another man that did not attend prayer meeting. He said, "No, sir, Edmondson is dead, you are lying anyhow and now get off at the wood station." There was a Sergeant on board, in charge of some soldiers, who took an interest in me. He said: "Captain, I have more transportation than I have men; let this man go on my transportation." He said: "No sir, he has got to get off. He is spinning a yarn. Who ever heard of a man coming back from California without money." So I got off, and when the train started, I stepped up on the back-platform. It was only a little while before we reached Enterprise. I saw the conductor standing on the platform, with his lantern, and I walked boldly by him. He easily detected me, as I had on a fur cap, very uncommon in the South, He said: "Are you ready to pay me, sir?" I replied: "No." He said: "If you are a gentleman, you will do as you said you would do. Leave that money here with Mr. Jackson, who keeps the eating house." I said: "I am not a gentleman now since you made me steal a ride, gentlemen don't do that way."
THEN HE COMMENCED CURSING.
I threw myself back with my thumbs under my arms and said: "Now, blaze away and when you think you have cursed out the value of your ticket, let me know and I will pass on." That was about one o'clock in the morning. Presently the engineer rang his bell and the Captain jumped on, shaking his fist at me as the train pulled out. I responded by shaking both my fists at him. That is my way of keeping out of a row with a conductor, wait until he gets off. Of course I was very mad while he was cursing, but I was in no condition to fight.
I went to the hotel and registered my name like a gentleman: "W. B. Crumpton, San Francisco, Cal." When I awoke the next morning, and looked into a glass, for the first time in six weeks, I was like Pat, when he said: "Pat, is this you, or is it somebody else?" I had been over the camp-fires and my face was smoked and greasy, and I looked more like a negro than a white man. By diligent use of soap and water, I got myself clean down to my collar. I had an old woolen comforter, that I had worn around my neck. I turned it wrong side out, pinned it close around my throat, spread it over the front of my dirty shirt, buttoned my coat and, imagine I made a right decent appearance. I took my seat at the table, crowded with people. I have no recollection when anybody got up. I came to myself after a while, when I asked for another biscuit, I looked at the negroes, whose eyes were almost popping out, and I realized that I was the only one at the table. I looked at the astonished lady at the end of the room and stammered out: "Is this Mrs. Edmondson? Excuse me please, I am nearly starved." She insisted on my eating more, but I didn't have the face to do it. I said: "Mrs. Edmondson, do you remember a boy coming here two years ago and hiring a horse and buggy to go out to Garlandsville?" She said: "Yes, I remember you well." I told her my story, and asked her to credit me until my people could send her the money, to which she readily consented.
REACHES HOME.
I journeyed on for twenty-four miles and late that afternoon came to my brother-in-law's home. They were all looking for me. I had separated at Panama with a man by the name of Simpson, who had been a commission merchant in Mobile, and I had given him a letter. He went across to Aspenwall, thence to Havana, and ran the blockade into Mobile. I had discussed doing that with my brother before I left San Francisco, but he advised very much against it.
I started from Beloit the 6th of March and reached home on the 23rd of April, traveling probably a thousand or twelve hundred miles, much of it on foot. As I spun my yarn that night around the fire-side, my sister said, "Brother, why didn't you ask Mrs. Edmondson to send you out in a buggy?" I said, "Bless my life, I never thought of it until you mentioned it." I had gotten so used to traveling afoot, it made no difference.
It was not long before I found a recruiting officer, Lieutenant John McIntosh, and gave him my name. At the appointed time, I took the train at Newton for Columbus, Miss., where on May 1862, I joined Company H., of the 37th Mississippi Infantry. I had a mind to join an Alabama regiment, but my people insisted on my enlisting in a Mississippi Regiment, so that they might more easily hear from me. The Lieutenant promised me a thirty days furlough to visit my Alabama kin as soon as I was enlisted at Columbus. After I had signed my name, he said, "Wash, do you want your furlough now?" I said, "No, you might get in a battle while I was gone, or the war might be over before I returned, so I will not take it." That furlough never came, except on two or three occasions afterwards, when I was wounded. Some day I may take the time to write out another story about, "What the boy saw after he got through the lines to the Confederacy," you may depend upon it, he saw sights. I was one of two or three in my regiment who could sing. Many a night, sitting around the Camp Fires, the weary hours were passed by singing Camp songs. Only two of these do I remember now.