for me to invite him to halt. He was welcome to stay there
if he wanted to. I argued that it was not my place to go howling around
the Southern Confederacy, ordering people to halt, when they had already
halted. If he would let me alone and stay where he was, what sense was
there in picking a quarrel with him?

Why should I want to shoot a total stranger, who might have a family
at home, somewhere in the South, who would mourn for him. He might be
a dead shot, as many Southern gentlemen were, and if I went to advising
him about halting, it would, very likely cause his hot Southern blood to
boil, and he would say he had just as much right to that road as I had.
If it come right down to the justice of the thing, I should have to
admit that Alabama was not my state. Wisconsin was my home, and if I
was up there, and a man should trespass on my property, it would be
reasonable enough for me to ask him to go away from there, and enforce
my request by calling a constable and having him put off the premises.
But how did I know but he owned property there, and was a tax-payer. I
had it all figured out that I was right in not disturbing that rebel,
and I knew that I could argue with my colonel for a week, if necessary,
on the law points in the case, and the courtesy that I deemed proper
between gentlemen, if any complaint was made for not doing my duty. But,
lordy, how I _did_ sweat while I was deciding to let him alone if he
would let me alone. The war might have been going on now, and that rebel
and myself might have been standing there today, looking at each other,
if it hadn't been for the action of the fool horse that I rode. My
horse had been evidently asleep for some time, but suddenly he woke up,
pricked up his ears, and began to prance, and jump sideways like a race
horse that is on the track, and wants to run. The horse reared up and
plunged, and kept working up nearer to my Southern friend, and I tried
to hold him, and keep him still, but suddenly he got the best of me and
started towards the other man and horse, and the other horse started, as
though some one had said "go".{*}

* [Before I get any further on this history of the war, it
is necessary to explain. The facts proved to be that my
regiment had got lost in the woods, and the scouting party,
under the corporal, who had been sent out to find a road,
had come upon the three-quarter stretch of an old private
race track on a deserted