A military satrap was the law of the land; there were no courts to appeal to, only the tender mercies of General Sheridan.
We immediately returned to the river. After crossing, I asked the party to hold the ferry until I could get my wife and baby to a friend’s house, about two miles distant. Hartsfield and Stevenson both refused and left, but Thorn, taking my pistol, in addition to the one he had, sat down by a tree and told me to take my time, that he would hold that ferryboat against the whole garrison.
I went to the house, took my wife and baby to a Mr. Waller Cochran’s, where they spent the night, and then I went back to relieve Captain Thorn. We then went to another friend’s house, where we were joined by our overseer, Hartsfield, and there spent the night. I instructed Mr. John D. Cochran, an old messmate, to go over to his brother’s place the next morning, get my wife and baby and either take them to Courtney to her sister’s home or bring them to Navasota, where we expected to meet them the next evening.
In crossing the ferry the next morning there were in the boat with them twelve men in command of a lieutenant, heavily armed, who had been out to the place, searching for us. My wife heard them make their threats that if they caught up with Thorn or Graber that they had orders to shoot them down without benefit of a court martial.
After spending that night at a friend’s house, we three started for Navasota, on the west side of the river, Stevenson having left us at the ferry the day before. I have never seen him since. We crossed the river at Old Washington and arrived at Navasota in the evening, where I met my wife, who was taken to a Mr. Felder’s house.
Our arrival at Navasota created great excitement. We were visited by many of the best citizens of the town, some of whom begged us to stay. They just wanted a chance at them, when they came after us, but I told them no, that our case was bad enough and that it would only result in involving our friends without accomplishing anything, which I was determined not to do. I therefore arranged to leave next morning for Waxahachie, where I was well acquainted, having spent two years of my boyhood there.
After a day’s reflection we just began to realize our condition. Outlawed by the powers that were, everything that we had in the world lost, confiscated, dependent altogether on what financial aid and assistance we might accept; and, although we had abundant aid offered us, it only made us more desperate. We felt that our fate was sealed, though we had not a moment’s thought of regret; we felt that we had done right, that we could not have done otherwise and were simply the victims of conditions existing.
I parted with my wife next morning, never expecting to see her again, telling her whenever she heard of my being in their hands, it would be my dead body; I would never surrender.
We now started on our trip to Waxahachie, without incident, stopping at houses at night, without disclosing our identity, giving fictitious names. When we reached Spring Hill we found a Mr. George H. Porter of Houston, an old army acquaintance of Thorn’s, who was out collecting for T. W. House of Houston. We also found a Federal quartermaster from Waco, out buying horses for the troops stationed at that point. Now, my friend, Thorn, had got to drinking very hard, getting more desperate every day and conceived the idea to hold up this quartermaster and make him give us his money. I spurned the idea, telling Thorn that he could not do it while I was there. I was not willing to turn highway robber, which it would have amounted to. Here was the turning point in our lives, especially in the case of Thorn, who didn’t seem to have any compunctions in the matter, though, in the eyes of many, he would have been fully justified. The Government, through their soldiers, had robbed us of everything we had and was seeking to take our lives without the benefit of a court martial, and, under the circumstances, Thorn’s idea might have been justified.
My friend Thorn readily yielded when I called his attention to the disgrace such an act would bring on our families, to say nothing of having entered into such practices, which would have carried us further into an infamous career. To me, the fact that we had to depend on misrepresentation and lies to save our lives as long as we could, with a faint hope of ultimately living out of it, was bad enough. Lying was revolting to my very nature. I always detested a liar, as much so as I did a thief, but in this case, I leave it to the reader whether we were justified or not.