, as well as her parents' friends,
were all ardent Southerners, and I am proud to say that after fifty
years of married life, she is still as strongly "Secesh" as ever. But
when I put the case to her she said gamely that she had taken me for
better or for worse and intended to stick to me.

She was in tears when she said good-by to her parents and friends, and
still in tears after they had left. I tried to comfort her with
assurances that when we came among Northern people I would not be
regarded as such a desperate character, but my consolation was of
little avail. At dinner the hostile stares that were bent on me from
our neighbors at table did not serve to reassure her. It was some
comfort to me afterward when the captain sent for me and told me that
he knew me, that my Uncle Elijah was his old-time friend, and one of
the most extensive shippers on the steamboat line. "It is shameful the
way these people are treating you," he said, "but let it pass, and when
we get to Independence everything will be all right."

But everything was not all right. In the evening, when I led my wife
out on the floor of the cabin, where the passengers were dancing, every
dancer immediately walked off the floor, the men scowling and the women
with their noses in the air. All that night my wife wept while I walked
the floor.

At daybreak, when we stopped for wood, I heard shots and shouting.
Walking out on deck, I saw the freed negroes who composed the crew
scrambling back on board. The steamboat was backing out in the stream.
Later I learned that my fellow passengers had wired up the river that I
was on board, and an armed party had ridden down to "get" me.

I quickly returned to the stateroom, and, diving into my trunk, took
out and buckled on a brace of revolvers which had done excellent
service in times past. This action promptly confirmed my wife's
suspicions. She was now certain that I was the bandit I had been
accused of being. I had no time to reason with her now. Throwing my
coat back, so that I rested my hands on the butts of my revolvers, I
strolled out through the crowd.

One or two men who had been doing a great deal of loud talking a few
minutes past backed away, as I walked past and looked them squarely in
the eyes. Nothing more was said, and soon I reached the steward's
office, unmolested. Here I found a number of men dressed in blue
uniforms. They told me they were discharged members of the Eighth
Indiana Volunteers.