as taken prisoner by the very
regiment to which he had formerly belonged. This sealed his fate. On
the way to Corinth several of his old comrades, among them his two
brothers, attempted to kill him, one of them nearly running him
through with a bayonet. He was, however, rescued from this peril by
the guard. Three days after the retreating army had reached Corinth,
General Hardee, in whose division was the regiment claiming this man
as a deserter, gave orders to have Rowland executed. The general, I
hope from some misgivings of conscience, was unwilling to witness
the execution of his own order, and detailed General Claibourne to
carry out the sentence. About four o'clock P.M., some 10,000
Tennessee troops were drawn up in two parallel lines, facing inward,
three hundred yards apart. The doomed man, surrounded by the guard,
detailed from his own former regiment to shoot him, marched with a
firm step into the middle of the space between the two lines of
troops. Here his grave had been already dug, and a black pine coffin
lay beside it. No minister of religion offered to direct his
thoughts to a gracious Saviour. I fear he was poorly prepared for
the eternity upon which he was just entering.

The sentence was read, and he was asked if he had any thing to say
why it should not be executed. He spoke in a firm, decided tone, in
a voice which could be heard by many hundreds, and nearly in the
following words. "Fellow-soldiers, Tennesseans, I was forced into
Southern service against my will and against my conscience. I told
them I would desert the first chance I found, and I did it. I was
always a Union man and never denied it, and I joined the Union army
to do all the damage I could to the Confederates. I believe the
Union cause is right and will triumph. You can kill me but once, and
I am not afraid to die in a good cause. My only request is, that you
let my wife and family know that I died like a man in supporting my
principles. My brothers there would shoot me if they had a chance,
but I forgive them. Now shoot me through the heart, that I may die
instantly."

Such were his fearless, even defiant words, and I recall them with
the distinctness of a present thought, for it needed little
imagination to place myself in his stead. Had I succeeded in
escaping at any former period and been retaken, this would have been
my fate. While I saw the hazard, I was none the less resolved to
make the attempt, and soon.

After Rowland