All this time I was not in loneliness. Throngs of Georgians came in to see the caged Yankee--both ladies and gentlemen. Many were the odd remarks they made, criticising every feature, and not a few adding every possible word of insult. The whole day they crowded in, and I was glad when the approach of night put an end to the annoyance. The coarse food the jailor brought was eaten with such a relish as hunger only can impart. I was fortunate in respect to quantity, for my companion was not well, and could not eat much; but I atoned for his shortcoming by eating both of our allowances without difficulty. In the morning, they took me before a self-constituted committee of vigilance. These committees were very common in the South, and still more summary in their modes of administering justice, or rather vengeance, than were the celebrated vigilance committees of San Francisco, in the early history of the gold mines. They were prepared with a board of the most eminent lawyers in the vicinity, and no doubt hoped to entangle me still more deeply in the meshes of contradiction than they did the day before. But I cut the whole matter short by saying: "Gentlemen, the statements I gave you yesterday were intended to deceive you. I will now tell you the truth." The clerk got his pen ready to take down the information. "Go on, sir; go on," said the president. "I am ready," said I, "to give you my true name and regiment, and to tell you why I came into your country." "Just what we want, sir. Go on," said they. "But," I returned, "I will make no statement whatever, until taken before the regular military authority of this department." This took them by surprise, and they used every threat and argument in their power to induce me to change my purpose, but in vain. My reason for this, was to avoid the violence of mob law. While in the hands of the populace, there was danger of the summary infliction of punishment that the military authorities could disavow, if our government threatened retaliation. But if I was once under the regular military jurisdiction, they would be responsible both to the United States and to the civilized world. When they found that I would tell them nothing further, they made arrangements to take me to Chattanooga, which was distant twenty miles. It was the same to Ringgold, near which we abandoned the train. Thus it will be seen that in that long and terrible night I had traveled twenty miles in a straight line, and, with my meanderings, must have walked fifty. I was remanded to the jail to wait for the preparation of a suitable escort. Here I remained till after dinner, when I was guarded by about a dozen men to the public square. A carriage was in waiting, in which I was placed, and then commenced the process of tying and chaining.