imate friend of mine, revealed the secret to me. The
enterprise was so grand and so audacious, that it instantly charmed my
imagination, and I at once went to Colonel L. A. Harris, of the Second
Ohio, and asked, as a favor from him, that if any detail was made for
another expedition of the same kind, I should be placed on it.

Soon after, one of the party, from Company C, returned, and reported
that he had ventured as far as Chattanooga, and there had met a
Confederate soldier who recognized him as belonging to the Union army;
and while, for the sake of old friendship, he hesitated to denounce
him to the authorities, yet advised him to return, which he
immediately did, and arrived safely in camp in a few days. He would
give no details that might embarrass his companions, who were still
pressing their way onward into the Confederacy.

A short time after this, all the party came back, and I received full
details of their trip to the center of rebeldom. They had proceeded in
citizens' dress, on foot and unsuspected, to Chattanooga; there had
taken the cars for Atlanta, where they arrived in safety. Here they
expected to meet a Georgia engineer, who had been running on the State
road for some time, and, with his assistance, intended to seize the
passenger train, at breakfast, and run through to our lines, burning
all the bridges in their rear. For several days they waited for him,
but he came not. They afterwards learned that he had been pressed to
run troops to Beauregard, who was then concentrating every available
man at Corinth, in anticipation of the great battle which afterwards
took place. Thus foiled, and having no man among them capable of
running an engine, they abandoned the enterprise for that time, and
quietly stole back to our lines. Had an engineer then been along, they
would, in all probability, have been successful, as the obstacles
which afterward defeated us did not then exist.

Our camp had been moved onward from Murfreesboro' to Shelbyville,
which is a beautiful little city, situated on Duck river. We camped
above the town, in a delightful meadow.

It was Sabbath, the 6th of April, and the earliness of the clime made
the birds sing, and the fields bloom with more than the brilliancy of
May in our own northern land. Deeply is the quiet of that Sabbath,
with the green beauty of the warm spring landscape, pictured on my
mind! An impression, I know not what, made me devote the day to
writing letters to m