n a trap, as our pass here ended, and we were near the
Federal lines. How to get out of the town was now the problem, and
one of the most difficult I had yet met in my study of Rebel
topography. We put up at the Crutchfield House, stabled our horses,
and sat about in the bar-room, saying nothing to attract attention,
but getting all the information possible. I was specially careful
not to be recognized. The cavalry company I had commanded on the
long retreat from Nashville, was in Chattanooga at this time. Had
any one of them seen me, my position would have been doubly
critical; as it was, I felt the need of circumspection. It was clear
to me that we could not leave Chattanooga in military garb, as we
had entered it, for, without a pass, no cavalryman could leave the
lines. This settled, a walk along the street, showed me a Jew
clothing-store, with suits new and old, military and agricultural.
My resolution was formed, and I went to the stable, taking with me a
newly fledged cavalry officer, who needed and was able to pay for an
elegant cavalry saddle. Being "hard up" for cash, I must sell: and
he flush of money and pride, must buy. Thus I was rid of one chief
evidence of the military profession. A small portion of the price
purchased a plain farmer-like saddle and bridle. An accommodating
dealer in clothes next made me look quite like a country farmer of
the middle class. My companion was equally successful in
transforming himself, and in the dusk of the evening we were passing
out to the country as farmers who had been in to see the sights.

We safely reached and passed the outer pickets, and then took to the
woods, and struck in toward the Tennessee river, hoping to find a
ferry where money, backed, if necessary, by the moral suasion of
pistols, would put us across. I was growing desperate, and
determined not to be foiled. We made some twelve miles, and then
rested in the woods till morning, when selecting the safest
hiding-place I could find, I left my companion with the horses and
started out on a reconnoissance.

Trudging along a road in the direction of the river, I met a
guileless man who gave me some information of the name and locality
of a ferryman, who had formerly acted in that capacity, though now
no one was allowed to cross. Carefully noting all the facts I could
draw out of this man, I strolled on and soon fell in with another,
and gained additional light, one item of which was that the old
"flat" lay