tinue our journey,
had not yet arrived, and the keen and icy wind cut almost through us.
We stood shivering here, and suffering extremely from the cold, for
something like an hour, when, to our great relief, the expected train
arrived. We were more comfortably fixed in it, and managed to doze
away the time till daybreak.

In the morning, we found that our three days rations, which were to
last us to Richmond, were scarcely enough for a breakfast. However, we
ate what we had, and trusted to buying a few necessaries with the
remaining money which our Union friends had given us. When that
failed, we had still a sure resource that never failed--endurance of
hunger.

During the day, we discussed the question whether it would not be
best, at nightfall, to try making our escape, as we were within forty
miles of our own lines. It would be an easy task. The guards were
perfectly careless, and at any time we could have had as many guns as
they had. They sat on the same seats with us, and slept. Frequently
those guarding the doors would fall asleep, and we would wake them as
the corporal came around, thus saving them from punishment. The most
complete security seemed to pervade them, utterly forbidding the idea
that _they_ thought they were taking us onward for any other purpose
than that of exchange. Once the sergeant laughingly told us that we
could escape if we wished, for we had the matter in our own hands; but
that he thought it would be more pleasant to ride on around, than to
walk across on our own responsibility. This very security lulled our
suspicions, and, combined with what the Marshal and other officers had
told us in Atlanta, induced us to shrink from undertaking a journey,
almost naked and barefoot as some of us were, over the mountains and
in the snow, which now began to appear.

In the afternoon, we passed the town of Knoxville, now a place of
loathing and hatred to us; then the town of Greenville, which we
noticed as being the residence of our heroic companion, Captain Fry;
then on into the lower part of Western Virginia. It was nightfall when
we entered this State, and a beautiful night it was. The moon shone
over the pale, cold hills with a mellow, silver radiance, which made
the whole landscape enchanting. On, on, we glided, over hill and
plain, at the dead of night, and saw, in the shifting scenery of the
unreal-looking panorama without, a representation of the fleeting
visions of life--like us, now lost