ing altogether a distance of over eighty miles, over a
difficult and partly mountainous country, and stopping only one hour
three times a day to cook our coffee and eat, while those who sank down
by the roadside entirely exhausted were left until the rear-guard came
and picked them up. When we finally arrived at our destination the enemy
that we were pursuing had already decamped, and we had to return by the
same route over which we had come, though more leisurely. Among the many
victims of this march was a bright Norwegian lieutenant of my old
company, Hans Johnson, who died shortly after our return to
Murfreesboro.

A few days afterward the regiment started on an expedition to the South.
During this march I got sick with the fever, and would probably have
died at Columbia, Tenn., if my friend Eustrom, who at that time was
captain of Company D, had not succeeded in getting me into a rebel
family, where I was treated with the greatest care, so that in a few
days I was able to go by rail to Minnesota on a twenty days' leave of
absence. This took place in the beginning of the month of July, 1862.

Having spent a fortnight in the bosom of my family I returned, with
improved health, to resume my command. I arrived at Chicago on a Sunday
morning, and, as I had to wait all day for my train, I went to the
Swedish church on Superior street. Leaving the church, I heard a
news-boy crying, "Extra number of the _Tribune_; great battle at
Murfreesboro; Third Minnesota regiment in hot fire!" I bought the paper
and hurried to the hotel, where another extra edition was handed me. The
Union troops had won a decisive victory at Murfreesboro, and totally
routed the forces of Forrest, consisting of eight thousand cavalry.
Later in the evening a third extra edition announced that "The Third
regiment has been captured by the enemy, and is on the march to the
prisons of the South." Only a soldier can imagine my feelings when I
received this news. I arrived in Tennessee two days later, only to meet
the soldiers returning from the mountains where they had been released
on written parole by the enemy. They were sore-footed, exhausted, hungry
and wild with anger, and looked more like a lot of ragged beggars than
the well-disciplined soldiers they had been a few days before. All the
captured officers had been taken to the South, where they were kept in
prison several months. Only two of them succeeded in making their
escape. One of those was Capt