at I could not march on account of my inflamed legs,
but he said that if I had got out of jail my legs would not have bothered
me much, and he reckoned that it would do me good to take a walk anyway.
And he would put us d--d Yanks where we wouldn't bother him any more. So,
after furnishing us with two days rations to last to Morgantown, they
started four of us, Captain Alban, myself, and the two Union prisoners
brought in the night before, whose names I do not now remember, under a
guard consisting of a Lieutenant and four men, for a tramp over the
mountains.

Our march over the mountains was a tedious one, interspersed now and then,
however, with some amusing incident. We were in good humor with the guard,
and laughed and joked along the road in a free and easy sort of way, and
succeeded in making ourselves agreeable to them, gaining their confidence
as much as we could, and after we had been marching half a day, a casual
observer would have hardly distinguished the prisoners from the guard. We
straggled along much the same as a dozen rebs would have done on a march
by themselves.

On the afternoon of the first day's march, we came along to a hickory
grove, where about a dozen black and gray squirrels were sporting about on
the top branches, gathering nuts, and I asked one of the guard to let me
take his gun a minute and I would get a couple of them for our supper. He
was about handing the gun to me, when the Lieutenant stopped him by
saying: "You d--d fool, do you know what you are carrying that gun for?
That Yankee might miss the squirrel and shoot you."

I laughed, and said he must think I wasn't much of a shot. But he said he
was afraid I was too good a shot to be handling one of their guns; anyway
the squirrels were probably tame ones belonging to the house near by, and
his orders were not to disturb anything along the line of march. That
night we stopped at an old farmer's and I thought that if we had a room
with a window looking outside there might be a chance for escape, and
asked to be given a room to sleep in that was well ventilated, as I always
liked lots of fresh air in my room; but we were placed in a middle room up
stairs, and a guard placed in the room with us all night.

The next morning, after a good hearty breakfast with the family, for which
the Lieutenant gave the farmer a receipt, we started on again, and at noon
we descended a mountain that was so steep that the road was made zig-zag
to allow