The Captain gave me some letters for Lieutenant Elkton, who was in command of our detachment at the Gap, which he said I was to deliver personally. I assented cheerfully to all the instructions, but when I had gotten off some time, and had cooled down a little, and had time to reflect, I concluded that I had better not be in a hurry to deliver that letter to our commanding officer. I "preserved" it carefully, however, so that it will be made public here for the first time. In addition to the numerous specifications that may be charged against me, I added that of robbing the Confederate mail.
As I look back over this mountain path, as it appeared to me then and remains in my memory, I wonder how it is that I ever got through with the journey alone so easily and safely.
I am not going to attempt a description of the wonderful mountain scenery of East Tennessee. That has been done so well and so often that any who may read this will have seen the well-written accounts which appear in the magazines every now and then, or, perhaps, more elaborately done in numerous war stories, as well as in the later writings of Charles Egbert Craddock and Frances Hodgson Burnett. Besides, every man of the Western armies has hoofed it over the same old road I traveled that day, carrying with him a goodly assortment of family groceries and "forty rounds," so that the impression on their minds will last as long as life remains, being as indelibly fixed as the everlasting hills themselves.
I can see nothing but the great mountains, on each side of an awfully rocky road, that seemed to me then to have been simply the dried-out beds of some streams that had refused to run to supply the Rebels with water. On every side of me, as I traveled along over these mountain roads, was the dense growth of interminable laurel thickets.
The country is, of course, somewhat diversified in mountain and plain, but the general impression left with me is, that it was so much more mountain than plain that there was hardly enough plain for a wagon-road.
After I had gotten some distance away, and was driving ahead as fast as the old horse would navigate over the rocky road, houses and farms began to grow smaller and beautifully less each mile. Every now and then we would plunge into a clearing, and find somewhere in a field of stumps a house—one of the small farmhouses where the roofs extend down and out over the front far enough to make a covering for a porch. On this porch one could almost always see some pumpkins rolled up in a corner, a saddle would be astride of the rough porch railing, a few dried provisions hung in the roof rafters overhead; one could always expect to find the lady of the house standing in the front door as he passed, and she was generally broad enough to fill the narrow space, so that only one or two heads would have room to peep out beside her, like young chickens under the old hen's wings. I generally hunted the well at almost every house we came to, when I took great cooling drinks of water from a gourd dipper.
These were the houses of the East Tennessee mountaineers. To describe one will answer for all. At the time of my travel among them, most of the men folks were away from home, either hiding among the rocks and gorges of the mountains from their persecutors, or, perhaps, having crossed the mountain, where they joined the Union Army, hoping soon to return to their homes as soldiers of the Government. There were six of these refugee Tennessee regiments as early as 1861-'62 in this part of the State, composed entirely of genuine, bona fide, Unionist refugees. I would like to record a comparison here with the refugees from Maryland in the Confederate Army at this time, both as to number and character.
I had left headquarters so late in the day that it was too much for me to make the Gap the same night with that horse, over these roads. When I started out, though, I intended to do this or burst; but on toward evening, after several hours of rough riding, I began to find the road getting so blind, and the houses were becoming so scarce, that I feared getting lost in the mountain if night should overtake me beyond the settlement.
So, early in the evening, when I reached the ford or crossing of a stream, the name of which I cannot now recall, I pulled up in front of a large house—for that country—and asked for a night's shelter. My impression is that this was a sort of stopping place or the last relay house on the southern side of the Gap. I found accommodation for both man and beast, and enjoyed a pleasant evening with the two old people on their front porch. I took it for granted that they were Unionists, though they had little to say on that subject, but they both were so well pleased with my way of talking, and of the encouraging news for a Rebel soldier to bring, that I think the old woman exerted herself to make the biscuit extra light, as she put enough salaratus in them to color the whole batch of them with yellow spots.
I was put to sleep in an attic room, and very early the next morning I was awake and dressed for the last ride. The old man had taken good care of the old horse during the night, feeding her on fodder, I reckon. When I got out from breakfast I found her tied to a tree down by the water. I mounted gayly. The old fellow gave me explicit directions as to the road to the Gap, which, he said, was in sight from the top of the hills. I bade him "Good-by," promising to pay the bill on my return. I hadn't a cent of money—besides, it was customary for the soldiers to live off the Unionists—so the old man was not much disappointed at not getting a fee, but I shall feel as if I owe them a dollar with interest for twenty-five years.