painful for me to write the adventures of the last year. As I
compose my mind to the task, there arises before me the memory of days
of suffering, and nights of sleepless apprehension--days and nights
that, in their black monotony, seemed well nigh eternal. And the
sorrow, too, which I felt on that terrible day, when my companions,
whom common dangers and common sufferings had made as brothers to me,
were dragged away to an ignominious death that I expected soon to
share--all comes before me in the vividness of present reality, and I
almost shrink back and lay down the pen. But I believe it to be a
duty to give to the public the details of the great railroad
adventure, which created such an excitement in the South, and which
Judge Holt pronounced to be the most romantic episode of the war, both
on account of the intrinsic interest involved, and still more because
of the light it throws on the manners and feelings of the Southern
people, and their conduct during the rebellion.

With this view, I have decided to give a detailed history of the
expedition, its failure, and the subsequent imprisonment and fate of
all of the members of the party. In doing this, I will have the aid of
the survivors of the expedition--fourteen in all--and hope to give a
narrative that will combine the strictest truth with all the interest
of a romance.

In order to understand why the destruction of the Georgia State
Railroad was of so much consequence, I will refer to the situation of
affairs in the Southwest, in the opening of the spring of 1862.

The year commenced very auspiciously for our arms. Fort Donelson had
fallen, after a desperate contest, and nearly all its garrison were
taken prisoners. The scattered remains of the rebel army, under
Johnston, had retreated precipitately from Kentucky, which had indeed
been to them "the dark and bloody ground." Columbus and Nashville were
evacuated, and fell into our hands. Island No. 10 was invested, and
the Tennessee river groaned beneath a mighty army afloat, the same
that had conquered Donelson, under its popular leader, General Grant,
and which, it was fondly hoped, would strike far away into the center
of the rebel States. Throughout the North, men talked of the war as
done, and speculated as to the terms of a peace that was soon to come.

But the end was not yet. The rebel leaders, who had embarked their all
in this cause, and had pictured to themselves a magnificent
slaveholding empire,