"Is not that a Yankee uniform you are wearing?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Why do you wear it?" was the next inquiry.
"Because," said I, "it is unsafe to wear any other where I have been."
"Where was that?" he wanted to know.
"Near Shelbyville."
"How came you to be there? Why are you not with your command?" was his next query.
"I was," said I calmly, "left behind at a house, on the retreat from Nashville, too sick to travel."
"Whose house were you left at?" he persisted in asking.