There were five killed and wounded in my company. One of them, George Ricker, was killed in the fight and laid close to the edge of the old field. His mess-mate, William Smith, saw him lying dead as we fell back. After the battle was over, though the sharpshooters were still firing, Smith asked me to let him go back and get the body, and help bring it off the field. I said to him it was dangerous for him to go, but he insisted and I finally consented. He went to where Ricker was, and just as he stooped down to raise him up a ball struck him in the side, and he fell dead on the body of his comrade. They were warm friends in life, and in death were not separated. Afterward the dead were buried, and the wounded cared for. On the night of September 1, 1864, the rebels set fire to the arsenal and all the military implements in Atlanta, and it seemed the whole earth trembled with the explosions. The rebels evacuated the city, moving out southeast, and on the morning of September 2d our forces took possession, thus gaining the victory after a siege lasting over a month. Next morning we followed the rebels to Jonesboro and had a hard battle, defeating them. After the battle was over we remained there for a few days, and then returned to Atlanta. The rebel regiment that I was urged to make up in my county, heretofore mentioned, was captured in the Jonesboro fight, losing quite heavily in killed and wounded. Some of the men learned that my regiment was in the battle, and heard that I was there, and they sent for me. I found that fifteen or twenty of the boys with whom I had gone to school were prisoners, and several had been killed. Some of these were boys I had played with when we were children. I make this statement to show that fathers and brothers and neighbors and friends had fought against each other. This regiment that I speak of was paroled and went back to East Tennessee, and never returned to the rebel army. After the war we were all good friends and good citizens. These boys went into the rebel army at the beginning of the war in 1861, and did not stay around home to rob and kill Union men, and hang them for their money. CHAPTER VIII. In this closing chapter I desire to give some incidents, etc., pathetic, humorous and otherwise, associated with but not included in this somewhat disconnected and rambling account of my varied experiences. The noble and patriotic women in East Tennessee, whose untold sufferings would fill a volume, most of whom have now passed beyond that bourne from whence no traveler ever returns, should have their names and deeds so far as possible recorded so that generations yet to come may honor them and reverence their memory. No night was too dark, no danger too imminent, no task too arduous for these self-sacrificing women to perform when the opportunity was presented to them to lend a helping hand to the hunted, starving Union men.