No food and no sleep for days was killing me. Still there was no rest, for all the night long I heard the groans of the poor fellows whose arms and legs were being chopped off by the surgeons. The whole night was simply horrible. I might have died there myself; I wonder that I did not. Only the hope of escape was keeping me alive. I had not eaten a pound of food in days.
Daylight of the 23d came. It was my birthday. Auspicious day, I thought, and again my hopes gave me strength and courage to work my way past lines of infantry and cavalry.
All day, till nearly sunset, I had crept around in the woods, avoiding sentinels, and now I was almost in sight of the longed-for goal. It was not a mile to the ford. When darkness set in I should swim the river and be a free man. More, I had news that would help Sherman's army to capture Atlanta. A thousand pictures of home, of freedom, peace, were painting themselves in my mind. One hour more, and all would be well.
Hark! a shot, and then a call to halt and hold up my arms. I was surrounded in a moment by fifty cavalrymen who had been secreted in the bushes—how or where I know not. We were in sight of the river, and the Union flag was just beyond. It was no use here to talk about being a Confederate. I was arrested as a spy, and in great danger of being shot then and there, without a hearing. I was partly stripped, searched thoroughly, and then marched between two cavalrymen to General Ross, of Texas, who, with his staff, was also at a hidden point in the woods. General Ross treated me kindly and gave me lunch and a blanket to rest on. It was his duty, however, to send me to the division headquarters, to be tried. I was again marched till nine at night, when I was turned over to General H——. He was sitting by a fire in the woods roasting potatoes and reviling the Yankees. As I was arrested as a spy, and to be tried, I deemed it best to say nothing. "Try to escape from me tonight," shouted General H——, as if he were commanding an army corps, "and I'll put you where there is no more 'scaping." Through the whole night a soldier sat at my head with a cocked pistol, but for the first time in days I slept soundly. Why not? The worst had happened. By daylight a guard marched me up to the city, where Hood had army headquarters in the yard of a private residence.
On the way there my guard, a mere boy, was communicative, and I persuaded him to show me the paper that was being sent around with me, from one headquarters to another. I read it. Sure enough, I was considered a spy, and was being forwarded for trial. The paper gave the hour and place of my capture, with the statement that one of those capturing me had seen me inspecting a fort on the previous Sunday.
When we reached Hood's tents, in the dooryard of the Atlanta mansion, I was turned over to a new guard, and the document brought with me was carelessly thrown into an open pigeon-hole of a desk out on the grass by a clerk who seemed too much disturbed about other matters to ask where the guard came from or what I was accused of. I, at least, noticed where the paper was put. There was the most tremendous excitement at headquarters. Orderlies and officers were dashing everywhere at once, fighting was constantly going on, and an immediate retreat seemed to be determined. I was left that night in a tent with a few other prisoners, among them two deserters, sentenced to be shot. Close by on the lawn was the desk where the clerk had deposited my paper. Our guard was very accommodating, or very negligent, for he allowed different persons to go in and out from our tent at all hours during the night. Daylight brought the provost-marshal general to the tent, to dispose of the prisoners. The name of each was called, and all but myself were taken out, heard, and sent off.
"And who are you?" he said, pleasantly enough to me. I stepped forward. The clerk was asked for the paper, but it was gone. "It certainly had been misplaced," said the clerk, in embarrassment. He had put it in that particular pigeon-hole. I testified to that myself, and added,—this sudden inspiration coming to me in the emergency,—that "it was of little consequence, as it was from an officer,—I didn't know whom,—who had simply picked me up as an escaped prisoner." The provost-marshal took me aside and asked me if I had been about the works or the troops any. I told him my name, that I was really an escaped prisoner, and that I had just walked up from Macon and had hoped to get away. "You have had a hard time of it," he said, "and I almost wish you had got away. I hope you will soon be free," he added, "and that the cruel war is almost over." It was a sudden and great relief to me to know that now I was not to be regarded as a spy. What became of the "papers" and the charges against me afterward in the midst of war excitements, I never knew. The next night the provost-marshal sent me under guard back to Macon prison whence I had escaped.