I walked up to this officer, who had spoken to me and said, “Now, I am ready to talk to you, sir.” He answered, “I beg your pardon; you are not the man we are after, but he is aboard here and we have just learned where he can be found.” I said: “All right, I am going up to the Southwestern Printing Office to see a friend and, if you do decide that I am the man you are hunting, you will find me at that place for the next hour.”
I then went up and spent an hour with my friend Black. When returning to the boat I met the police officer on the stairs, coming down, and he said to me, “We have found our man; he was in that woman’s stateroom, under her berth.” I asked him why he was arrested. He said he did not know, only there was a requisition from the Governor of Georgia for him. It seems the sheriff’s office had been abolished by the military, the sheriff removed from office as an impediment to reconstruction, and this was the reason this business was turned over to the city police department.
When I reached the cabin guards, I found the young ladies crying and asked them what was the matter. They told me that Colonel So-and-So, an old acquaintance of theirs, had just been arrested, but they did not know for what cause. It seems that these ladies and their mother lived in Louisiana, not far from New Orleans, and had been on a visit to Henderson, Texas, and were just returning home. It is hardly necessary to say that I kept shy of these folks the balance of the trip.
The next day I met up with an old gentleman by the name of Wilkerson from Columbia County, Georgia, who had been to Tyler, Texas, for the purpose of getting his son, who had been acting deputy sheriff, and had got in some trouble. I found the old gentleman a true Southern man, expressing his unreserved sympathy for the fallen South and denouncing in bitter terms the crime of reconstruction, as carried on. Needing some one to talk to and confide in, I had no hesitancy in making a confidant of him, which immediately enlisted his sympathy and kind interest and, without hesitation, he extended me an urgent invitation to go with him and make his house my home, saying that the armies had never touched his section of the State; they had got his negroes, but he had plenty of everything left and as long as he had a morsel left he would divide it with me. He further said whenever it was safe to send for my family, to do so, and we could stay at his home where we would be most welcome by all of his own family, besides himself, his wife, daughter and two sons, until I got out of my trouble.
Before reaching Marshall I had decided not to go to Mexico and place myself out of mail communication with my wife, but to go to Memphis, Tennessee, to see General Forrest, with whom I was well acquainted, having served under him in the early part of his career. I wanted to ask him to secure some kind of business for me, then to smuggle my family there and remain until the military were withdrawn.
On a further consideration of Mr. Wilkerson’s generous offer, especially the feature of being isolated away from any town and public travel, I decided I had better accept, which I had no hesitancy in doing and on our arrival at New Orleans, we took a boat for Mobile, thence by rail to Atlanta and his station in Columbia County, somewhere between Atlanta and Augusta.
My reception at the Wilkerson home by the rest of his family, especially his wife and daughter, after learning of my troubles, was most cordial and unreserved and certainly they tried to make me feel at home and forget my trouble during my stay of six weeks. It was here that I received my first letter from home. After six weeks, doing nothing, having nothing to occupy my mind, I decided that I ought to do something more than kill valuable time and try and get into business somewhere, where I might make a new start in life. For this purpose I requested Mr. Wilkerson to give me a letter of introduction to his commission merchant in Augusta, Georgia, where I must try and get into business. The whole family tried to persuade me to not take such a great risk. I, nevertheless, parted with them with expressions of my high appreciation of their kind interest in my behalf and proceeded to Augusta, armed with Mr. Wilkerson’s letter of introduction to the commission merchant, whose name I have forgotten.
On arrival at Augusta I put up at the best hotel and, I forgot to mention, having assumed the name of James E. Smith while at Mr. Wilkerson’s, I registered under this name. Having to pay five dollars per day for board and room, I decided that I must get a cheaper place, some good boarding house if possible. Presenting my letter of introduction to Mr. Wilkerson’s commission merchant, they stated they were not making a living for themselves, which was the condition of most of the business houses in Augusta, as some of the rich people in the country were sending in and drawing rations. These gentlemen then referred me to the only good boarding house they knew of which was reasonable in their rates. It was kept by Mrs. Oakman on Green Street, where I called and was informed by the lady that she could board me, but had only one place for me to sleep and that was in a room with two double beds in it, one of which had only one man sleeping in it, a printer and ex-Confederate soldier from Macon; if I was willing to sleep with him, she could take me and to which I agreed.
At the supper table that night I was shown a seat by a one-legged Federal captain, who was the Provost-Marshal of the place. When I entered my room that night I was introduced by my bedfellow to a Mr. Rice of Syracuse, New York, and a telegraph official, whose name I have forgotten, both occupying the other bed.
I found that Mr. Rice had been sent there by Henry A. Wilson of Massachusetts, the ex-Vice President of the United States, and Kelley of Pennsylvania, who were touring the South inciting the negroes to riot and murder of the whites, which will be remembered by the Mobile riot, which surpassed perhaps all the other places they visited.