It took the boys five days to cover the thirty-five miles that lay between Corinth and Tupelo, and they were by no means the last of the stragglers to come in. The men who had been left behind, and who had no intention of deserting, were nevertheless bound to enjoy their liberty while they had the chance, and some of them did not arrive for two weeks.
In process of time the descriptive list and discharges of those who came under the exemption clause of the Conscription Act were made out, but there was so much red tape to be gone through with before all the provisions of the Act could be carried out, that the two friends were in a fever of suspense for fear that something might happen at the last minute to blast their hopes. Their officers did not want to let them go, and the slightest hitch in the proceedings would have made conscripts of them. But in their case everything worked smoothly, and finally all they had to do was to go to the paymaster and get their Confederate scrip. Being provided with passes which would take them as far as the lines of the Confederacy extended, they took leave of their friends, not without a feeling of regret it must be confessed, and boarded the cars for Camp Pinckney, which was located a hundred miles from New Orleans. After they left the camp their passes would be of no use to them, for it was said that the country between there and Mooreville, forty miles east of Baton Rouge, was over-run with Federal cavalry. They reached the camp without any mishap, ran the guard in order to get out of it (but that was not a difficult thing to do, for nearly all the soldiers in camp were conscripts who had not had time to learn their business), and before they had gone ten miles on their way toward Mooreville, came plump upon a small squad of Union cavalry, who covered them with their carbines and told them to "come in out of the rain." It was hard to be "gobbled up" within two days' walk of home, but the boys put a bold face on the matter. The corporal and his three men seemed to be a jolly, good-natured lot, and the ex-Confederates knew they would be sure of kind treatment as long as they remained in their hands.
"You've got us easy enough," said Dick. "Now what are you going to do with us?"
"Take you down to Baton Rouge and put you where you'll not have a chance to shoot any more Yanks," replied the corporal. "Where's your regiment?"
"We don't know; and not wishing to give you a short answer, we don't care. We never shot any Yanks, and neither do we mean to go where they are again if we can help it. We've got our discharges in our pockets."
"Seeing is believing. Hand 'em out."
The boys complied, and as they did so Rodney remarked that if they had known that the corporal was as white a man as they had found him, they wouldn't have "come in out of the rain" so readily. They would have taken to their heels and trusted to his forbearance.
"I am glad you didn't try it," replied the corporal, reading the discharges one after the other and passing them over to his men. "A gray-back streaking it through the bushes would be a mighty tempting target, even to fellows like ourselves who don't shoot only when we have to. Have you got enough of the service?"
"More than we want," answered Dick.
"Well, you can't be forced into the army until you are of the right age, and in the meantime I don't suppose you will do us any great damage. What do you say, boys?"