I had taken the precaution to drop in to see Colonel Jones, who had oversight of the mail service to the North as well as the general exchange of prisoners, and left with him a brief cipher dispatch for my friends North, explaining my change of base from Richmond; also, a note to some Texas friends, telling them our command had been ordered to Manassas, and expressing a hope to meet them there soon. I had been careful enough not to designate the battery explicitly or to name the officers.
CHAPTER XXI.
MARYLAND "REFUGEES"—COERCING INTO THE UNION EAST TENNESSEE "REFUGEES"—PARSON BROWNLOW INTERVIEWED—A HAPPY EXPERIENCE WITH MAGGIE CRAIG—THE BATTLE OF MILL SPRING—FIRST UNION VICTORY AS SEEN FROM INSIDE THE REBEL ARMY.
I reluctantly take the reader away from the Rebel Capital and its attractions. I was leaving Richmond at least, somewhat against my own inclination.
While lying curled up in a seat in the old emigrant car, that was being used to transport the troops, sleeping, and, perhaps, dreaming of "the girl I left behind me," I was roughly awakened by a sharp bump on the end of our train that sent me bouncing off the seat against the back of the one in front. When I hurriedly picked myself up and looked around me wildly, I realized that something had happened; and, as everybody else seemed to be rushing to the doors and windows, I made a reckless break in the same direction, but before I could get into the aisle of the car the floor of our car in the vicinity of where I was standing seemed to rise up suddenly. In the same instant I found that something had caught me by the left leg near my knee, which held me as in a vise. In my desperate struggles to extricate myself, I threw myself violently backward, my head striking the iron corner of an adjoining seat. I succeeded in breaking loose, but only after the car had come to a stop, and the danger was all past.
It was only a run-off, that caused the truck under our car to turn and twist itself upside down in such a way as to force part of the woodwork through the floor, resulting in squeezing my leg against the seat, so that it cut deeply into the flesh and left a mark big enough to entitle me to a pension—when the Rebel soldiers get their turn.
This happened near a little town located close upon the Virginia and East Tennessee line, named I think, Abington. We laid off there to repair damages—to the railroad. None of us were hurt seriously enough to require more than a patching up, which our private surgeon was competent to do. The accident, however, gave me an opportunity to meet, for the first time in many months, something that was pretty scarce in the Eastern part of Virginia at that time, namely—an outspoken Union man, who was also a native of Virginia.
When we learned that we should be delayed there until a couple of cars could be brought out to replace the broken ones, the Colonel and I concluded to strike out for ourselves, in search of some warm meals and perhaps a bed. With his assistance I limped along to a house standing some distance from the railroad track, where we applied for entertainment, offering pay for the same.
A tall, lank man met us pleasantly at his gate, and to our proposition he replied in a cordial, though dignified, manner so foreign to his appearance and surroundings that I was surprised.