To a soldier taken in battle imprisonment merely means exchange or parole, but this was a different matter. It was not probable that the soil of a neutral republic had been violated merely that the Texan officers might have the pleasure of my company about their quarters. At Fort Bliss I was taken before the then post commander, Major Waller, who said: “You are brought here a prisoner, sir.” I asked why they had taken me from neutral soil, and he said I would learn in time. He then sent for the officer of the day, Capt. Ike Stafford, who conducted me to the guardhouse; it was filled with vermin and bad men. (Captain Stafford still lives in Texas.) The first night a blacksmith came and took the measure of my ankle, and presently returned with a ball and chain which he riveted on my leg. I soon found that by removing my boot I could slip the iron over my foot, but the chances for escape were very poor, and I often shuddered when awakened from troubled sleep by its clanking. The idea of kidnaping me did not originate with the Texan military, but was instigated by citizen non-combatants—my own neighbors. The next day two of the young men who kidnaped me came to see me at the guard house. Their names were Craig and McGarvey—James McGarvey, now of Galveston. Before they left they promised to be my friends, and faithfully kept their words. They told me that Kuhn had offered to divide with them the reward paid him for my arrest, but they declined the blood-money. Colonel Herbert also called to see me, and denounced my arrest and volunteered to act as my counsel. The colonel applied for a writ of habeas corpus, but the district judge refused to grant it. I asked to see Colonel Baylor, and asked to be tried and hung or shot or released. He said he had evidence enough to hang me, though he would dislike to do it. Still, if I insisted, he would give me a court martial. He recounted very correctly some of the incidents of my journey to Santa Fe. The next day Baylor sent his adjutant to inform me that he could not grant a court martial. Before my arrest I had written my brother Emmett, who was employed on the overland stage line west of Mesilla, that there would be fighting between the Texas and United States troops, and suggested that he come in and report to the commanding officer at Fort Fillmore. He came, but received no encouragement at Fillmore, and learning of my arrest and being in danger of rebels at Mesilla, he attempted to make his way toward California. He went in the mail coach with a party of six other young men, all well armed.