below might be coming upon us unawares, I rode out in
the field to our front, still entirely alone, to observe whether the
enemy was passing. The field was grown up with corn so tall and thick
as to cut off the view of even a person on horseback, except directly
along the rows. Even in that direction, owing to the overhanging blades
of corn, the view was not extensive. I had not gone more than a few
hundred yards when I saw a body of troops marching past me not fifty
yards away. I looked at them for a moment and then turned my horse
towards the river and started back, first in a walk, and when I thought
myself concealed from the view of the enemy, as fast as my horse could
carry me. When at the river bank I still had to ride a few hundred
yards to the point where the nearest transport lay.

The cornfield in front of our transports terminated at the edge of a
dense forest. Before I got back the enemy had entered this forest and
had opened a brisk fire upon the boats. Our men, with the exception of
details that had gone to the front after the wounded, were now either
aboard the transports or very near them. Those who were not aboard soon
got there, and the boats pushed off. I was the only man of the National
army between the rebels and our transports. The captain of a boat that
had just pushed out but had not started, recognized me and ordered the
engineer not to start the engine; he then had a plank run out for me.
My horse seemed to take in the situation. There was no path down the
bank and every one acquainted with the Mississippi River knows that its
banks, in a natural state, do not vary at any great angle from the
perpendicular. My horse put his fore feet over the bank without
hesitation or urging, and with his hind feet well under him, slid down
the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet away, over
a single gang plank. I dismounted and went at once to the upper deck.

The Mississippi River was low on the 7th of November, 1861, so that the
banks were higher than the heads of men standing on the upper decks of
the steamers. The rebels were some distance back from the river, so
that their fire was high and did us but little harm. Our smoke-stack
was riddled with bullets, but there were only three men wounded on the
boats, two of whom were soldiers. When I first went on deck I entered
the captain's room adjoining the pilot-house, and threw myself on a
sofa. I did not keep that position