han that."

"Well, you are, by jingo."

"Well, who said I wasn't?"

Tom got terribly excited, and spit faster than ever, as he said: "Well, by
thunder, you are a Yankee."

I should have laughed if he had been going to shoot me, and I did laugh
heartily at his excitement. This made him more excited still, and by the
time he had finished reading the paper, he was so excited that I could
easily have disarmed him, but the Sergeant sat there, with his pistol
ready to shoot if we made any attempt to get away.

I then told them that we were Yankee officers, and that we had for six
months suffered the horrors of prison life, that we had escaped from
Columbia, and had walked three hundred miles to gain our liberty, and
pulling up my pants I showed them my legs, which were swollen to three
times their natural size, and very much inflamed, and asked if, after
having tramped so far with such a pair of legs, I was not entitled to my
liberty. The tears started into Tom's eyes, his mouth twitched
convulsively, he spit with fearful rapidity, and he finally said in a
choking voice, "By thunder, I am sorry I ever saw you."

If I had my way I would let you go, but if we did old Harshaw, who is a
bitter Confederate, would report us and we would be shot. And Tom meant
what he said; for as will appear further on, he was a Union man at heart.
But the Sergeant was unmoved by our distress, and was only too proud to
think he had captured two Yankee officers, to contemplate letting us go;
so he ordered us to walk between them back to Fort Emory, ten miles. No
Sergeant, I said, I am your prisoner, only because my legs gave out; and I
shall never walk back. If you want me to go back to Fort Emory, you will
have to carry me, for if I could have walked you would not have seen me.
He insisted that I start on, but I told him plainly that I would not walk
a step, that I had just about as leave he would shoot me right there as to
take me back into prison.

Tom finally said, Dick, you take him up behind you, and I will take this
big fellow up behind me, and we will get along much faster. To this
proposition the Sergeant consented, and we both mounted and started back.
If I could have had a chance to have said a dozen words to Alban before
starting, without their seeing us, we would not have gone far; but the
Sergeant and I rode ahead, followed by Tom and Alban, and if I had made a
move to disarm my man, Tom would have been just in a position to hav