was a
little higher, and hitched his horse to the tree. In the night a
thunderbolt rived the pine, killing the horse, but the Lieutenant
escaped without injury.

At five o'clock, A. M., on the 9th, we resumed our march on the road to
Abbeville, passing through the like stretch of pine country, and reached
that delectable town about three o'clock, P. M. Here we fortunately
struck the trail of the fugitive "Head." Lieutenant-Colonel Harnden,
commanding the First Wisconsin Cavalry, had left Macon on the 6th of
May, the day before ourselves, moving south, to the left of the
Ocmulgee, and having got on the track of a train of wagons and
ambulances that was proceeding westward, he diligently followed it,
making forced marches to Brown's Ferry on the Ocmulgee, and crossing the
river got into Abbeville a few hours before us, where he waited to meet
Pritchard, and inform him of his pursuit of the train. He said, however,
that he did not think Davis was with it, as it was reported that he
travelled by himself,--which, as we learned after the capture, was the
fact,--but that he thought Mrs. Davis was, as the people told him there
was a lady-like woman with the wagons. Harnden had but seventy-five men
with him, and Pritchard tendered him an additional force, if he thought
himself unable to cope with the train, in case he overtook it; but the
proffered aid was declined, and the officers then parted, Harnden
expressing his purpose to pursue the direct road to Irwinville, as the
train had taken that route, and would make that point that night,--and
it did in fact camp within four miles of Irwinville, and within two of
Jeff Davis.

Pritchard, after parting with Harnden, sent a strong picket to the
ferry, and then resumed his march on the river-road. About three miles
from Abbeville he found a negro watching his master's broken-down wagon.
From him he learned some interesting particulars concerning the train
which Harnden was pursuing, and which had crossed the ferry the night
before,--among them this: that, when the party with the train came to
pay the ferryman, the latter went to strike a light, which the former
forbade, saying that they could pay well enough without a light, and in
fact did pay him a ten-dollar gold-piece and a ten-dollar Confederate
note,--a circumstance, which, with other things, made Pritchard believe
that Davis crossed the river with the train. He also learned that the
river-road was intersected at Wilcox's Mil