All this time we were most intensely anxious to know how military affairs were progressing in the world without. I had appropriated from an officer in charge of us, a paper containing the Confederate account of our chase, which has been given before, and also an admission that the battle of Shiloh was not so much of a victory as they had at first supposed. We managed, likewise, to get one or two other papers which gave the welcome news that our armies were still pressing onward, and earnestly did we wish and hope that Chattanooga would be reached in time to effect our deliverance. But the best item of news we received, was from our old jailor, who, on one occasion, became too drunk to remember the orders he had received against telling us anything, and let out the very interesting fact that General Mitchel had advanced to Bridgeport, only twenty-eight miles below us, on the Tennessee river, and there had sorely defeated the rebels, capturing some of the very same men who had been guarding us a few days before. This was very cheering, and we began to hope that we, too, would soon be captured. The officer of the guard was obviously uneasy. All the time we were in the dungeon, we had been guarded by twenty-six men, with a captain over them. This was certainly enough to keep twenty-two, confined and chained as we were, in our place, but we thought it would be a capital joke should they be captured with us! But it was not their intention to let us fall into Mitchel's hands. An order was sent to the captain in charge to prepare us for moving. He did so; and soon after, we were in the cars, carried down the same road we came up so rapidly three weeks before. How beautiful all nature appeared! It was May, and the time we had spent without one glance at the expansive sky or green earth, had not been lost in the material world. The landscape had been robed in a richer verdure, the budding trees had swelled into leafy screens, the sky was of a softer blue, the birds warbled with new melody, and everything seemed to wear its holiday dress. O, the joy! the gladness! of being once more under the canopy of heaven, and of looking up to its unfathomable depths, with no envious bars to obstruct our view. Many a time have I passed the month of May, amidst the most romantic scenery, but never yet did I so deeply feel, that this is indeed a pleasant world, full of beauty and goodness, as on that balmy evening, when the rays of the setting sun, glowing from the west, streamed over the grass and wheatfields on their path, and poured in mellowed, yellow radiance, through our car-window. But even then the glories of earth and sky could not make me forget that I was still chained to my companion, and surrounded by guards with gleaming bayonets.