Our original hope had been to get so far ahead of all pursuit as to pass Chattanooga before the pursuers had reached Dalton. Then the junction of roads at the latter point would not have been an embarrassment to us, as will be made clear by a reference to the map. Andrews said that the plan, of which a hint was given in a few rapid words, was good and worth trying. But the one great defect in his character as a leader came to the surface in this emergency. This was a disposition to turn everything carefully over in his mind before deciding. There was no time for reflection now. The Confederate whistle sounded, and our men, without waiting for the word of command, so accustomed had they become to this manoeuvre, mounted the engine and sped away. Andrews bitterly regretted afterwards that this last expedient was not tried. With this exception, I do not know of anything more that could have been devised, beyond what we actually attempted. One object only could now be attained by clinging longer to the train, the speedy abandonment of which was inevitable. Andrews wished to shorten the distance to our own lines as much as possible, so that the slender chance of escaping through the woods and mountains might be increased. It was far easier to travel on the engine than to run or skulk through the country on foot. It was better to continue this mode of locomotion as long as possible, or until we were carried as near Chattanooga as it was prudent to venture. The old lightning rate of running could not be maintained, but we were still moving swiftly. The engine was in a bad state, and really incapable of much further service. The fuel, too, was gone. For some time we had been reduced to the fragments that had been torn off the cars before they were dropped, and to what we had gathered up along the roadside. Now all that remained of a combustible character was crowded into the fire-box for the last pull. Andrews had always kept with him from the time we first met him at the midnight consultation a mysterious and well-filled pair of saddle-bags. These, of which he had been very careful, and which were supposed to contain important and compromising documents, were now added to the fire. It was a signal, if any were needed, that the time had now come to prepare for the worst. Andrews and three others--Brown, Knight, and Alfred Wilson--were now on the engine, and the remaining sixteen were huddled together on the tender. At no time since the writer had proposed attacking the pursuing train had he been in a position to urge the attempt on Andrews, and it was now too late. But another decision was arrived at on the engine against which some of us on the tender would have protested with all our energy had the opportunity been offered. Alfred Wilson, whose opinion was directly opposite to that of George D. Wilson and the writer, says,--