is
artillery--scanning the distant woods to see the Rebels falling back in
hopeless confusion before the pursuit of his dashing advance. Though we
became as impatient as those ancient sentinels who for ten long years
stood upon the Grecian hills to catch the first glimpse of the flames of
burning Troy, Sherman came not. We afterwards learned that two
expeditions were sent down towards us from Cheraw, but they met with
unexpected resistance, and were turned back.

It was now plain to us that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall,
and we were only troubled by occasional misgivings that we might in some
way be caught and crushed under the toppling ruins. It did not seem
possible that with the cruel tenacity with which the Rebels had clung to
us they would be willing to let us go free at last, but would be tempted
in the rage of their final defeat to commit some unparalleled atrocity
upon us.

One day all of us who were able to walk were made to fall in and march
over to the railroad, where we were loaded into boxcars. The sick
--except those who were manifestly dying--were loaded into wagons and
hauled over. The dying were left to their fate, without any companions
or nurses.

The train started off in a northeasterly direction, and as we went
through Florence the skies were crimson with great fires, burning in all
directions. We were told these were cotton and military stores being
destroyed in anticipation of a visit from, a part of Sherman's forces.

When morning came we were still running in the same direction that we
started. In the confusion of loading us upon the cars the previous
evening, I had been allowed to approach too near a Rebel officer's stock
of rations, and the result was his being the loser and myself the gainer
of a canteen filled with fairly good molasses. Andrews and I had some
corn bread, and we, breakfasted sumptuously upon it and the molasses,
which was certainly none-the-less sweet from having been stolen.

Our meal over, we began reconnoitering, as much for employment as
anything else. We were in the front end of a box car. With a saw made
on the back of a case-knife we cut a hole through the boards big enough
to permit us to pass out, and perhaps escape. We found that we were on
the foremost box car of the train--the next vehicle to us being a
passenger coach, in which were the Rebel officers. On the rear platform
of this car was seated one of their servants--a trusty old sla