me as guide to pilot
us there. Be ready for an early start and report to my adjutant."

"Thank you, sir, I will do as you request," said I.

The next morning I selected two good men. Brother Levi Stewart
was one, but I have forgotten who the other man was. The day was
cold and stormy, a hard north wind blowing, and the snow falling
rapidly. It was an open country for thirteen miles, with eighteen
inches of snow on the ground. We kept our horses to the lope
until we reached Shady Grove timber, thirteen miles from Far
West. There we camped for the night by the side of Brother Waldo
Littlefield's farm. The fence was burned for camp-fires, and his
fields of grain were fed to the horses, or rather the animals
were turned loose in the fields. After camp was struck I went to
Gen. Wilson and said:

"General, I have come to beg a favor of you. I ask you in the
name of humanity to let me go on to Adam-on-Diamond to-day. I
have a wife and helpless babe there. I am informed that our house
was burned, and she is out in this storm without shelter. You are
halfway there; the snow is deep, and you can follow our trail" - it
had then slackened up, or was snowing but little - "in the morning;
there is but one road to the settlement."

He looked at me for a moment, and then said:

"Young man, your request shall be granted; I admire your
resolution." He then turned to his aid, who stood trembling in
the snow, and said, "Write Mr. Lee and his two comrades a pass,
saying that they have gone through an examination at Far West,
and were found innocent."

After receiving my pass I thanked the General for his humane act,
and with my friends made the journey, through the snow, to Adam-
on-Diamond. As we neared home the sun shone out brightly. When I
got in sight of where my house had been I saw my wife sitting by
a log fire in the open air, with her babe in her arms. Some
soldiers had cut a large hickory tree for firewood for her, and
built her a shelter with some boards I had had dressed to
weather-board a house, so she was in a measure comfortable. She
had been weeping, as she had been informed that I was a prisoner
at Far West, and would be shot, and that she need not look for
me, for she would never see me again.

When I rode up she was nearly frantic with delight, and as soon
as I reached her side she threw herself into my arms and then her
self-possession gave way and she wept bitterly; but she soon
recovered herself and gave me