nly remained
until our steed of iron which had so well served us would be powerless.

But it might still be possible to save ourselves. If we left the train
in a body, and, taking a direct course toward the Union lines, hurried
over the mountains at right angles with their course, we could not, from
the nature of the country, be followed by cavalry, and could easily
travel--athletic young men as we were, and fleeing for life--as rapidly
as any pursuers. There was no telegraph in the mountainous districts
west and northwest of us, and the prospect of reaching the Union lines
seemed to me then, and has always since seemed, very fair. Confederate
pursuers with whom I have since conversed freely have agreed on two
points--that we could have escaped in the manner here pointed out, and
that an attack on the pursuing train would likely have been successful.
But Andrews thought otherwise, at least in relation to the former plan,
and ordered us to jump from the locomotive one by one, and, dispersing
in the woods, each endeavor to save himself. Thus ended the Andrews
railroad raid.

It is easy now to understand why Mitchel paused thirty miles west of
Chattanooga. The Andrews raiders had been forced to stop eighteen miles
south of the same town, and no flying train met him with the expected
tidings that all railroad communications of Chattanooga were destroyed,
and that the town was in a panic and undefended. He dared advance no
farther without heavy reinforcements from Pittsburg Landing or the
north; and he probably believed to the day of his death, six months
later, that the whole Andrews party had perished without accomplishing
anything.

A few words will give the sequel to this remarkable enterprise. There
was great excitement in Chattanooga and in the whole of the surrounding
Confederate territory for scores of miles. The hunt for the fugitive
raiders was prompt, energetic, and completely successful. Ignorant of
the country, disorganized, and far from the Union lines, they strove in
vain to escape. Several were captured the same day on which they left
the cars, and all but two within a week. Even these two were overtaken
and brought back when they supposed that they were virtually out of
danger. Two of those who had failed to be on the train were identified
and added to the band of prisoners.

Now follows the saddest part of the story. Being in citizens' dress
within an enemy's lines, the whole party were held as spies, a