ame--"J. J. Jennings, 5th Kansas Cavalry."

Colonel Polk laid down his pen and looked up, with a flushed face and
swelling veins, blurting out:

"You're one of the d--d gang that burned my house and cleaned out my
plantation; I've a notion to hang--no, you're a prisoner. Next!"

He resumed his pen and returned to his writing, but one could see that
he harbored much resentment for a legitimate act of warfare which had
happened to come home to him.

After we had been duly examined and registered we were sent to the
cotton press, where the men were, and here we remained for several days,
our promised parole not being forthcoming.

Finally, a sufficient guard was secured, and we were started off for
Shreveport, the talk of the parole, having served its purpose, now being
forgotten.

The march to Shreveport occupied about a week, and attempts to escape
were numerous. Each night several men would get away by having comrades
cover them up with leaves so that they would be left behind in the
morning. I devised a scheme to capture our guards and liberate ourselves
in a body, but most of the men were fearful of failure, and sufficient
co-operation could not be secured.

One night, four men dug a hole beside the road and concealed themselves
in it, being covered over with leaves and brush. The guards had missed
so many by this time that they had resolved to investigate; so, when we
had marched just clear of our camp, we were halted, and a couple of
officers went back, with drawn swords, and commenced prodding all piles
of leaves and likely places of concealment. Soon the point of a sword
penetrated through the boughs and leaves over the hole and to the fleshy
portion of the anatomy of a man beneath them. A smothered yell and a
convulsive spring revealed the place of concealment, and the poor
fellows were hauled out and escorted with scant ceremony back to the
crowd. Not a man of us but who wished that they had escaped; but the
desire to forget our own misery was too great for our sympathy, and the
crestfallen men were greeted with shouts, yells, laughter and all sorts
of jokes. The guards viewed these attempts good-naturedly, but they had
their duty to perform, and their vigilance put a stop to further
attempts of this sort. Just before we reached the Red River a young
fellow suddenly made a magnificent leap, clearing the fence by the side
of the road, and ran like a deer toward a neighboring clump of timber
and underbrush