The sheriff told him we were Virginians, which seemed to relieve him, as he exclaimed:
“Well, I thought Yankees couldn’t have so much pluck.”
One fact he was rather curious about, and that was, how we had thrown the bloodhounds off our track so easily. But this knowledge, which had been imparted to us by the negroes, we refused to divulge.
“Well,” said he in conclusion, “I wish you a long life; and if I had the say in it, I’d let you go free, for you’re none of these d——d Yankees.”
At this moment the cars started, and he, bidding us another good-bye, leaped off, and we saw him no more.
Soon after this little incident, my friend, the sheriff, got a paper which he handed to me. In it I noticed an account of the recapture of Captain Clay Crawford, who was in prison with us, and had escaped at the same time, but had been separated from us in the alarm of that occasion. I read also an advertisement of one J. J. Geer, described as follows: “Six feet and three-fourths of an inch in height, black hair, and blue eyes.” Lieutenant A. P. Collins was also named, but without any description.
I knew instantly that I had been reported by the man that I mentioned in the beginning of my narrative as having been a deceiver. He had measured me in Columbus jail, Mississippi, and, as I was in my bare feet at the time, this measurement was short, as by all military standards I always measured six feet two inches.
There were other unpleasant items in this paper, the principal one of which was that in reference to McClellan’s retreat from before Richmond.
In due season we arrived at the end of our journey, Macon, Georgia. In conferring with the sheriff on the subject of our future course, I told him it would be best for his own safety to take us to the prison as soon as possible. This he did; and it was but a short time after, that we were again face to face with the tyrant Rylander. He sent us under a guard of four men to our cells, where the jailor came and robbed us of our money. He took also our watches, which until now we had succeeded in carrying. We were then heavily ironed, and left in those filthy cells with only a little straw to lie upon, and this full of odious vermin.
We ascertained that it was true concerning Captain Clay Crawford’s recapture. He belonged to a Missouri regiment, and was a genteel, manly comrade, never, like most of his companions, jeering at religion or its advocates. He was a graduate of West Point, and consequently a man well versed in military matters.