"On approaching, we saw in its immediate vicinity quite a number of negro cabins, and in the yard surrounding the house about twenty blood-hounds chained to the fence, indicating that these were the premises of an extensive planter. The only occupants of the house were an old man and woman. We apologized for disturbing them, and told them we were soldiers who had been on furlough returning to our regiments at Atlanta, and wished directions to the ferry (we had discovered a ferry as we came down); also, that we were hungry and wanted to get something to eat, provided they felt like feeding hungry soldiers without money, as we had had no pay for some time, and were both moneyless and in bad health, Mark's appearance proving this latter assertion. It was quite dark, however, and they could not see us very distinctly, but they evidently credited our story, for they told us to be seated and we would soon be made welcome to such food as they had. "They were a couple of quite intelligent but unsophisticated old people, in comfortable circumstances, living, as most Southerners did, away from any highway, and we gained their confidence so far as to feel ourselves assured from suspicion. I had been in Dixie so long that I had acquired, from the guards and citizens, their vernacular of speech quite perfectly; besides this, we had learned the names of officers and the number of different regiments, such as the Eighth Georgia Cavalry, Fifth Tennessee Infantry, etc., until we were able to tell quite a plausible story, if not too closely questioned. "We asked the old man if there was any late news. He said, 'Nothing, except that the Yankee raiders had seized the Atlanta jailer, overpowered the guards, and a number of them escaped and had not yet been caught.' We expressed great surprise that such a piece of audacity could be made successful in Atlanta. The old man said, 'They were a desperate, dangerous lot of scoundrels, who ought to have been hung long ago.' He said many of them stood up and fought the soldiers with clubs and bricks, even after the guards had shot them through, and finally they jumped the high fence and ran like deer.