man, and that Captain Lyons, who had so kindly loaned me his
horse, was one also, but they dare not show it. We only went three miles
the first afternoon, and the next morning Tom Hubbard overtook us, leading
a mule for me to ride, as I had only borrowed Captain Lyons's horse for
the first afternoon. Tom Hubbard soon found an opportunity to tell me,
that his brother and a Captain Tidwell were going to try to assist us to
escape. This Captain Tidwell was in command of another company of home
guards, and we had not gone far on this second day of our march, before he
met us as if by chance, and we halted, and after chatting a few minutes,
Tom asked him to ride along with us.

He had a canteen of applejack, and invited all hands to take a drink. This
we all did, though Captain Alban and I drank very sparingly. The canteen
was passed quite often, and though we all seemed jolly, I noticed that it
held out pretty well, and concluded that they were all trying to get the
rest drunk, without getting drunk themselves. What we wanted was, to get
enough of this apple brandy down Lieutenant Leatherwood and Sergeant Dick
Hancock, to affect them, and then make a break; but it did not work. They
pretended to drink, but were as wary as ever, and were evidently onto our
little game.

We were a noisy crowd that passed along that road through the woods that
day, we sung, shouted, laughed and swaggered, but that canteen still held
out. Finally as we were passing a spur of the Nantahala mountains, we saw
some mules feeding upon the mountain to our left and rear, and as all were
mounted except Captain Alban, it was suggested that the Lieutenant and
Sergeant try to catch one of the mules for him, so we could get along a
little faster.

The Sergeant gave Captain Tidwell his revolver, to guard us while he was
gone, and they started up the mountain in pursuit of the mules. When they
had got half way up, Captain Tidwell told us to run into the woods and up
a ravine that separated the two spurs, and he would fire his revolver
towards us, to make believe he was trying to shoot us, but would be
careful not to hit either of us. We had never seen him until an hour
previous, and of course did not know but this was only a dodge to give
him an excuse for shooting a Yankee, but we took the risk, and started
into the woods.

He shouted halt! halt!! and fired three shots in quick succession; the
bullets sounded uncomfortably near our heads, but we kept on