nd forty-sixth man who can tell a story well. Ben
Tillye is one of them, and here is an anecdote I heard from him, which
is rather interesting, and which may even be true:

"I had just been promoted to a first lieutenancy, and thought that I
saw a generalship in the dim distance. Why, with such prospects, I
should have straggled right into the arms of three bushwhackers, I do
not know.

"Falling into the hands of guerrillas was a serious business then. An
order had been issued by the wiseacre in command of the Army of the
Potomac that all guerrillas taken should be put to death. This did not
deprive the bushwhackers of a single man, but they naturally retaliated
by a counter-order that all prisoners of theirs should be shot. In this
game of pop and pop again the guerrillas had decidedly the advantage,
and I was one of the first to fall in their way. I had hardly
surrendered before I regretted that I had not resisted capture. I might
have killed one of them, or at least have forced them to shoot me on
the spot, which would not have been so much worse than dying in cold
blood the next morning, and which would have led to a pursuit and the
breaking up of their camp. But here I was disarmed, and after an hour's
march seated among them bushwhacking in an old cabin on a hillside.

"The leader of the party of three who had captured me seemed a kindly
man--one that, if it were his duty to behead me, would prefer to give
me chloroform before the amputation. For obvious reasons I made myself
as agreeable as possible to him. I tried also to talk to the captain of
the band after I reached the camp, but he repelled my friendly advances
with something like surliness. I reasoned that he intended to execute
me, and did not wish to have his feelings taxed with regrets. At any
rate, after finding that he could get no information of value from me,
he went on with his writing at a table made by propping up an old
wooden shutter in the corner of the cabin. Meantime I reflected that
the only way in which I could avoid my doom was by awakening a friendly
sympathy in the minds of my captors. I fell to talking for life. I
trotted out my funniest stories, and the eight men about me laughed
heartily as I proceeded.

"The captain was visibly annoyed. My interlocutor in this conversation
was his second in authority, the one who had captured me. He had no
distinct mark of rank, but I fancied him to be a sergeant. At length
the captain turned to