Sergeant White commanded our escort. He had always been kind to us, and, like his superior, did not care which side came out best in the war, so long as he was not hurt. The guard were only ten in number, while we were twenty and unbound,--a ridiculous falling off from former precautions. We were crowded into box-cars, and soon began to suffer severely with cold, for the night air was most piercing. It was the 3rd of December, and we had only summer clothing, which was, in addition, very ragged. About three o'clock in the morning we left the train at Dalton to wait for another train to Cleveland, as we were not to go through Chattanooga. This was our last passage over the railroad we had so much wished to destroy nine months before. The stars were sparkling in night and frosty brilliancy. When we stopped, and the keen and icy wind cut almost through us. We nearly perished before the train arrived, and enabled us to continue our journey. In the morning we found that our three days' rations, which were to last to Richmond, were barely sufficient for breakfast. We ate everything, and trusted to buying something with the remaining money our Atlanta Union friends had given us. When that failed we had our old resource,--the endurance of hunger. During this day's ride on the cars, we discussed the question as to whether it would not be best to capture the guard and escape. The task did not seem hard. The guards were very careless, and we could at any time have had as many guns as they had. They sat on the same seats with us, and were often asleep. Several times on the trip we awakened the sentinels by the doors as the corporal approached, thus saving them from punishment. Once Sergeant White laughingly told us that we could escape if we tried, but that he thought it would be more pleasant for us to ride around by way of Richmond rather than to walk over the mountains on our own responsibility. This very security lulled our suspicions, and made us shrink from undertaking an escape which would have involved severe hardship in mountain travel, if nothing worse. Besides, we no longer had the same homogeneous party as in Atlanta. In the afternoon we passed Knoxville, and were glad to keep right on. Then came the town of Greenville, the home of our former companion, the heroic Captain Fry. About nightfall we reached the Virginia line, and ran steadily on. It was a beautiful night; the moon shone over the pale, frosty hills with a mellow radiance which made the whole landscape enchanting. The shifting scenes of mountain, stream, or ghostly wood seemed to me like a panorama of human life. The morning dawned upon us, still steaming slowly through the romantic valleys of Virginia.