Soon I saw a man about half a mile away toward the mountains, gathering
corn from the field, with an old gray horse. I made myself known to
him, for by this time I was getting very weak, not having had anything
to eat since Henry and I had been separated at the negro shanty. If I
remember right, there had been at least a week, if not better, since
I had tasted food. When I got to the old man I gave him to understand
that I was a fugitive and was on my way to Ash county, West Virginia.
My way and manner of talking was not like that of the people here, so
the old man told me he reckoned that I was a Yank from Salsbury prison,
but he seemed to receive me so kindly that I told him who I was after
he had told me that most of the people there were Union folks. This
he did to win my confidence. Oh, how sorry I was as soon as I went to
the house, for the old lady was, I believe, the hardest looking old
woman, with a Roman nose, and such eyes I never saw, as she glared
on me when I uttered the word that we were rebels. Here there was a
son about thirty years old, seated in a chair, who was a sad sight,
for he appeared to be perfectly helpless and he would repeat just like
some parrot the same words, “Yes, we are rebels here,” and how simple
he seemed to act. Now the old man told the old lady to give me some
hoecake if there was any and he at this time showed his true colors,
for he told me that there was a company being raised and I had better
wait and eat some hoecake until he would return, and I would get a good
suit of rebel gray, worth thirty or forty dollars a suit, and fifty
dollars bounty. On saying this he left me, and jumping on the back of
the old gray horse went off on the run to a small town four miles to
the west and south of his place. This old man, I think, told me that
he was eighty years old. As soon as he was gone I told the old lady
if there was any hoecake in the house that I must have it. She still
insisted that they were rebels and had nothing for a Yankee. Then I
told her that I would have to help myself, for I was determined to have
something to eat or die in the attempt. I had almost become mad on
account of going so long and having so little to subsist on. You see
the harvest had gone by and the cold, bleak rains and some snow would
fall every few days.
Now, kind reader, comes one more sad incident of my experience in
life. I had finally started for the cupboard, when the old lady told
me that she would give me some hoecake, and that I must not try to go
until “Pa” came home, and if I did she would have to stop me. I sat and
ate the corn cake, which was done very soon, and then I started for
the door. It seemed so strange that every time the old lady would say
anything the poor crippled young man would repeat most everything his
poor old mother would say. When I started to go to the door the old
lady stepped between me and the door and I told her if she did not
step aside that I would have to use force enough to put her aside, for
go I must. She had in her hand a fire poker and I felt afraid that I
would have to war with a poor old woman. I told her that go I must, and
she stepped aside, sending curses after me.
I must say right here that I had at last reached the Blue Ridge
mountains, or at least this old man’s place was less than half a mile
from the foot of the mountains. Just before I could reach the foot
of these mountains I had to cross a large, deep stream. I found that
I could not get anything to cross on, though I looked diligently for
a boat, and to cross a stream some one hundred rods or so across at
such a time of year as it was then meant something. Believing it
meant death or capture by the rebels, who would soon be on my trail,
I nerved myself for this perilous undertaking. This was surely one of
the coldest baths that I had ever before experienced. Now before me was
one of the worst things that I had ever encountered in all my life,
for if any of the readers of this story ever have been near the Blue
Ridge mountains they know that unless a person finds a trail to cross
the mountains with it is almost an impossibility to get over them. I
knew nothing of any trail and knew from all appearances, and from what
I could hear, that bloodhounds would soon be in pursuit of me, so I
commenced to climb the side of the steep, rugged mountains, several
hundred feet in height, which seemed to be almost perpendicular. After
I had climbed for a long way up I could hear the hounds in pursuit of
me way below, but I was sure that I had climbed where no human foot had
ever been before. Well, I did not dare to look back.
This reminds me of the time when two certain people were commanded to
flee and not to look back. My position reminded me of those two. You
cannot imagine my feelings when I would get hold of some large bush
that grew in the crevices of the rocks to have them give way and seem
as though they would tear loose and let me fall some three or four
hundred feet below. Now, to tell the whole truth, dear reader, it was
over half a mile or more, and nearly perpendicular. The hounds could
not climb after me, and once more I was satisfied that I had escaped
another Southern hell, or I might say, death.
But what is death if the soul is in God’s care? Well, praise God, it
does seem that His hand was with me and is still with me in this last
sketch of my life.
Still I continued to climb the mountain side until I got on top of one
of the highest points before I dared to look down, and oh, what a sight
you never have had, dear reader, being several thousand feet above the
common level. Looking down you would be surprised at your enormous
height. I must say that I believe I had climbed at least two thousand
feet. At last I had gotten to where it was not so steep, yet it was
still quite a distance from the top of the Blue Ridge mountains. After
I had traveled some distance further I finally found it to be quite
difficult to make much headway on a strange mountain, and that after
night, and if, dear reader, you have ever been on any mountain you will
find it more or less uneven and hard to climb, even in the daytime.
As I still continued to travel along, I soon came to a place which
seemed impossible for me to get over. It was a very deep gorge or a
cut, which seemed to be at least eighty or ninety feet from top to
bottom, and over ten yards across. On either side it seemed to be
perfectly straight up and down. Well, after some thought, I climbed
down on what seemed to be a tall spruce tree, and after I got down in
the bottom I found a stream of cold water which seemed to be running in
the direction from which I had come. Here I was right under the solid
rocks and in a cave immediately underneath from where I had climbed
down. I had a curious desire, though it was very dark in this cave,
to go in and see how far it extended under the rocks. I thought how
much I would have given at this time for a torch. Upon the impulse of
the moment, I started into this cave and wandered for several rods.
I continued for some distance. I had several times stepped from side
to side of this cave and fell on the slippery and slimy stones in the
bottom. There were many leaves that would rustle under my feet, and,
oh, the many thoughts that would pass through my mind of some deep,
unknown space that I might step off into, fall on the rocks and be
killed. And if I should lie down to sleep and never awaken again! Such
thoughts would crowd themselves upon my mind until I finally concluded
to go back and climb another tree on the other side of the chasm. As
I turned to go, to my surprise I heard, further back in the cave, a
hoarse growl. This seemed to come closer, and if ever anyone needed
help it seemed I needed it just now, for I could see two bright orbs
or eyes looking right at me, and it seemed that every minute that what
I had at this time encountered would soon bounce upon me. I continued
to look right at the object until I had backed myself nearly to the
mouth of the cave, and I soon got out on the opposite side by climbing
another tall evergreen. After having crossed these mountains and gotten
on the other side I met with a West Virginian. He told me that he had
been for many years an old trapper, and had killed bears in this part
of the mountains that weighed fully four hundred pounds. Now, it might
be if I had stayed in that cave that this tale would never have been
written.
I continued to travel until I came to a large farm on the top of this
mountain, a farm of over one hundred acres, and all cleared. It seemed
so funny to find a large farm away on top of such a large and high
mountain. I went up to the house and found it to be very large and
black in color, which had a large, old-fashioned, fire-place, made of
stone and sticks. There was but one door and one window, but it was
a large house. The roof ran very low on the north side, and on the
south side was the door and window. I went to this door and looked in
the window and saw three or four pairs of cavalry boots, with spurs
attached to them, sitting by the fire-place on the hearth. I made up
my mind that it was best not to disturb these folks, for I did not
like the looks of those boots and spurs. I went around the house and
found on the north side a mess of shelves and on them quite a number
of old-fashioned crocks all full of nice sweet milk. I drank a sup of
it and then went on and looked for a mountain trail that I knew must
lead down off this mountain somewhere. Soon I found it and followed it
until I arrived in the village below. I went but a very short distance
before I came to a log house, and found myself so hungry and faint
that I had to call on the occupants of this house for a bite to eat.
This night’s travel had been well spent in getting over the mountains
thus far. I went up to the door rather tremblingly and knocked for
admittance, when a kind old man came to the door. I told him what I
desired and he invited me into his house. This was about two o’clock in
the morning. This proved to be one more hard spent night of travel. The
whole family, composed of a very kind wife and a daughter, got up and
in a very short time had a good breakfast. We all sat down and ate. It
was about half past three o’clock. I told these people that I wished
to go as soon as possible. I told them in as few words as possible how
I had suffered and about the perilous times that I had experienced.
He now told me that he had hunted in the mountains that I had just
crossed and told about killing bears that weighed over four hundred
pounds. Now when we all had eaten, I started again on my journey, and
I felt anxious to get away, for I had great encouragement that I would
soon get to our lines. As we parted, after so short a stay, the kind
old lady and her daughter shook hands with me and bade me God speed.
The kind old gentleman went with me some distance from their place to
direct me to the line of Tennessee. Now this kind old man told me to
keep in line with the Blue Ridge mountains and to keep them to my left
and follow the Chestnut Ridge, along in range with the Blue Ridge. He
told me to be sure and not leave this Ridge, and it would bring me to
what was called the Iron and Doe mountain. This mountain I would have
to cross in order to get into our lines in Tennessee. So after a kind
greeting and a wish for God’s speed he parted with me.
I have often wished that I could have kept a diary of the names of
the people who had befriended me on my journey. How many times have I
thought of God’s hand being in my travels.
I was instructed to be sure and keep in range of the mountains—that
is, the Blue Ridge—and I would be sure to go all right. As I have said
before, I had no intention of doing any traveling in the daytime. Thus
far it had all been done nights, but after the old man left me and I
had got on the Chestnut Ridge I found some of the largest chestnuts
that I ever saw in my life. So I thought that I would pick up some of
them and carry them along with me, and as I was doing so I heard a man
down in the valley calling hogs, and it seemed as though he was looking
in the direction I was in. He seemed to be armed with a gun, so I got
on the other side of the ridge and hurried along for some distance,
when I again stopped where the nuts seemed to be very thick, when I
looked up to find the object of my pursuit holding his gun on me and
not over thirty rods away. This was the first time that I had been
caught in so close a place.
I had now got some five or six hundred miles from Florence prison. As
soon as I saw the rebel I thought I would run. Then I started to walk
very fast, and it seemed that he would soon shoot me, judging from the
way he acted. So I turned and spoke to him, and he told me that he
reckoned he would have shot me if I had not stopped. We sat on an old
log and talked for a long time, and I must say that this was the first
time in my life that I ever talked politics, but it seemed as though I
never had such power of speech before, for I told this rebel plainly
that the South had seceded and rebelled from the best government on
earth, and if Jeff Davis was hung that the war would close. The rebel
would say the same about our martyred Lincoln, and at last this rebel
home guard, or guerilla, told me that I would have to go with him.
This seemed hard after having suffered what I had to get away from
those rebel hell pens to be taken back. It discouraged me so much that
I concluded to die rather than go where he would turn me over to any
home guards, for I knew it meant almost certain death to any Yankee to
be retaken after trying to get away from prison. Oh, how I plead for
him to let me go, and told him no one would ever know except God if he
did. I plead as I never plead before in all my life, and shed fountains
of tears, but still it seemed all in vain. The rebel told me that he
would have to take me to a home guard about four miles distant, and he
ordered me to get up and go with him. Now when I saw that my entreaties
would not prevail, I concluded that I would get away from him some
way or die in the attempt. So I pretended to be very lame and could
hardly go, and as we traveled along told him that I would still live
in hopes of getting through to our lines and to friends. He allowed
me to walk a little in his rear, and still sobbing and pleading for
him to let me go. I had my mind made up to get his gun out of his left
hand as he seemed to be trailing it along and to brain him and get
away and leave his carcass on the Chestnut Ridge to feed the fowls,
or to be found by some other home guards. Now, as I was contemplating
this and still pleading for him to let me go, having already attempted
to reach his gun, I spoke of my poor old mother, who was waiting at
her sad fireside, after losing one of her boys in the Battle of the
Wilderness, and whose bones were lying in the Alexandria cemetery, and
who died before he was sixteen years old. When I spoke of this and my
poor suffering mother at home it seemed to break him up and he turned
around just as I was about to make the final attempt to snatch his gun.
He looked very pale, and, sobbing, told me that he had a good mother
once who used to pray for her wayward boy, but she was gone now. He
said: “If you will promise not to tell who you are or where you came
from we will go down to that house in the valley and get something to
eat and you can go,” and then it was that my heart was lifted, for I
could see that he meant what he said. Still I continued to be very
careful not to trust him too far. Well, we went to the house and found
two nice looking women there, one weaving the sheep’s gray cloth, and
they asked me very kindly where I came from. I told them that I was
only a refugee. That was all my guide allowed me to tell. Now the food
that was set on the table for me to eat was something immense. The
good hostess sat on the table one full old-fashioned gallon crock of
milk and a nice dish of butter, a bowl of nice apple sauce, a plate of
biscuits and a loaf of corn bread. Oh, how, I thought of my own home
as I sat eating. It seemed that I never would get through. They all
sat and gazed at me while I ate, and after eating nearly all that there
was on the table—at least nearly a whole gallon of milk, and most all
that I have mentioned—the rebel came to me and placed his hand on my
shoulder and told me that he reckoned I had better stop eating if I did
not want to kill myself. The two ladies of the house looked sadly after
me when I started off, and as soon as we got out of the house the rebel
told me to keep straight east and that I need not be afraid to stop
anywhere. I concluded that he wanted some one else to take me, but did
not go a mile before turning to the northwest, the same direction I had
traveled all the way when the stars were my only guide.
Henry and I had found on an old southern map where Knoxville, Tenn.,
lay from Florence prison. I had not gone over half a mile when I began
to get sick, and I vomited all that I had eaten. It seemed as though it
would kill me, eating so much milk and apple sauce. It caused gas in my
poor, weak stomach.
It came on foul, cold and rainy weather and traveling without the guide
of the stars was very difficult. I traveled for several nights and
parts of days, to find myself back to the very house that I had left,
and to my joy found them good Union folks. The women received me kindly
and concealed me in the loft of the small barn. The next night found me
again on my way.
It seemed as though I had traveled in the last preceding days, and had
made no headway, over seventy-five miles. I got started again before
night and came to where there was a large chestnut orchard, of over ten
acres, and the limbs of the trees grew close to the ground. In this
orchard there was a large drove of hogs fatting on the nuts that they
got to eat, and right to the left of this was a large field of over
one hundred acres of pasture and a vast herd of cattle was feeding in
this field. Down to the north of the field I spoke of, in which the
hogs were, was a large brick house and just south of the house stood
several graycoats looking at me. The cattle were following me while I
crossed this large field and their bellowing made me very nervous.
Well, after I had traveled again for nearly three nights and days, in
cloudy weather, I found myself crossing this same field, in the same
place, going in the same direction. Now this kind of traveling nearly
broke my heart. I saw the hogs, to make sure, and the chestnut orchard
and the brick house. Oh, how I cried to see what a waste of time I had
made. I came to the conclusion that I would not travel any more unless
I had settled weather. This event caused me to shed bitter tears once
more, and to recall this to my memory makes me feel extremely sad,
but I do thank God from the depth of my heart that I have learned to
trust Him under every circumstance, and when I look back over these
scenes and memories of the past I feel to praise God for preserving my
unprofitable life.
Well, I crossed this field again, determined to lay by until clear
weather, and when night sat in the stars and moon shone, which helped
me along until in a few days I came to the Iron and Doe mountain. I had
traveled for several days with nothing to eat but hard corn, and as
another day began to dawn I came to a barn back in the field from the
house that seemed to be near Iron mountain. I stayed here, intending
to go again in the evening. I saw a boy about ten years old come near
the barn to get an old gray horse. Then I saw a middle aged lady go
with a cart to milk. Oh, how the pangs of hunger again bothered me.
Well late in the afternoon, about four or five o’clock, I saw no one
but the little boy and a girl about fifteen years old. They seemed to
be afraid of me, and well they might be, for I had long, uncut hair
of nearly half a year’s growth, and was a sad looking sight. These
good children gave me a dish of bread and milk to stay my poor, weak
stomach until their mother came home, and very soon I learned that this
woman’s husband was in the Union army at Knoxville, Tennessee. I stayed
here concealed in the corn husks for these days, and it was quite bad
weather, but how many hours I sat in the house and told them of the
suffering of prisoners in southern prisons.
Now the time had come for me to again be on my journey. When I got
ready to go it seemed hard to part with such kind friends who had done
so much for me, and something that I felt I would never be able to
repay in this world, but I bid them a kind farewell. This good lady
told me to follow along the mountains until I came to the mountain
trail and then I was to follow this across the mountain. She told me
I would come to the trail in about four miles from her place. Then
after I had crossed the Iron and Doe mountain it would take me into,
I think, Johnson county, Tennessee. Well after leaving this place I
thought that I had crossed one mountain on my own hook and could do so
again. So after going about two miles came to the conclusion that I
could turn to the right and climb up the mountain until I struck trail,
and did so. I climbed one range after another, as I thought, when it
began to get cloudy, and I well remember that the woman told me it was
fourteen miles across this mountain. Now when the fowls were crowing
for daybreak what was my surprise to find myself back to the very house
that I had just left, and had to go clear up to the door before I could
be convinced that it was the place I had left that evening. I did not
want them to know that I did not follow their directions. So I just
started off as fast as my poor weary legs could carry me, and before
day had the satisfaction of knowing that I had struck the mountain
trail. I will say right here that my kind friend told me to be sure to
pass the third house before attempting to stop, and then I would find
good Union people. As soon as I got to this mountain trail it commenced
to snow and blow very hard, and oh, how I suffered. I am not able to
describe here what I experienced and my tongue seems too short to tell
it, but, dear reader, just imagine yourself in my stead, surrounded by
rebels on every side, and in a strange country, and clad with an old
woolen shirt nearly in tatters and your drawers with one leg gone to
the knee, and you can form some idea of what I had to put up with in
this cold storm, and a mere walking skeleton at that. I had an average
weekly fare of corn hoecake and bacon, and that not averaging once a
week.
Well, I had been told when I got by the third house that it would be
safe to stop. The storm was so severe that I made a mistake and stopped
at the third house, and as fate would have it this was the very one
that I should have shunned. Here I found a rebel captain from the
Eleventh Virginia Cavalry, home on a furlough, and when I knocked and
he let me in it must have been three or four o’clock in the morning.
I told him I had been directed there by a friend and he seemed to be
all right, and placed a feather bed on the hearth of an old-fashioned
fireplace, or close to it, and it was not many minutes before I was
fast asleep, and really I imagined that I was at home on one of my
own mother’s cots, but what was my surprise when I awakened to find
myself in the hands of a rebel captain, in full rebel uniform, with
bars on his collar. Truly I felt surprised. His wife told me as soon
as I arose that I ought to have gone to the next house and there would
have found her own folks, who were good Union people. Her husband,
the old captain, tried to stop her talk, but it seemed of no avail.
She told him if he did not let me go that she would go home. He told
me to sit and eat some hoecake and bacon, for he was going to turn me
over to the home guards. I felt so bad to think that I was again in the
hands of my enemy. I told him that I could not eat, but he commanded
very fiercely for me to come, and the look of his wife told me that he
needed petting. So I went and ate my supper—not my supper, but dinner,
I might choose to call it—but could not eat much, and drank a little
corn coffee, and how many tears and such pleading, both on my part and
the part of his kind wife, to let me go! At last when pleading ceased
and his wife told him that if he did not let me go that she would go
home and there remain, with many bitter curses on his lips he started
off, with me tagging along after him, down again toward the foot of the
mountain. I looked over his side arms and it occurred to me that he
had no gun of any kind, nothing but a sword to guard me. So I lagged
behind, pretending that I could hardly walk, and I took a good look at
his long legs, for he was over six feet tall, and then I started up the
side of the mountain with the rebel in full pursuit. I still continued
to run the best I could up among the rocks and brush that grew thick
on this mountain side. Still the rebel continued to pursue me for some
time, when finally he went back.
Well I kept on for some length of time, until it had gotten to be
nearly night. I finally came to the mountain trail that I had been on
when I stopped at the rebel captain’s place. I had in all of this day’s
rambles traveled in no direct line, but had put in a good part of the
day.