about thirty-five or forty miles distant from this Quaker’s plantation. He told us to be sure and remember that his name was John Coltraines. He also told us about this man’s having a brother about a mile further along on the same road by the name of “Bill” Coltraines. One of these brothers was a Union man and the other a rebel. John, the kind old Quaker told us, was engaged in piloting Union men, as well as rebels, through our lines. The first night, not getting started as early as we ought, we only got about eight or ten miles on our way when we stopped and concealed ourselves. We had been living rather sumptuously and sleeping nights instead of laying still by day and traveling by night. We laid by this night. Henry and I lay concealed the best part of the next day, planning what we intended to do when we arrived home. We talked of either going to his parents’ place or to my folks’ home. We would conceal ourselves until everybody had gone and then we would take possession and have everything to ourselves, and have everything to eat that we could think of. Being starved as we had been seemed to weaken our minds. Well, dear reader, if you could have seen the plight we were in and some of the nests of leaves that we gathered up for many a night to cuddle up in to snatch a few hours’ rest and to inspect the tattered drawers and shirt that covered our starved skeletons, your sympathy would have been aroused. Soon the day dawned again and we lay concealed, sleeping and eating until toward night. Our stopping with the Quaker planter seemed to get us more in the notion of eating and of having some regular time in which to eat, but we could not let the sack of food alone which we allowed would last us four or five days. It surprised us how soon it was gone, for before night of Saturday we had eaten about all we had started with. We started again about eight o’clock to make more progress than we had the night before, hoping to find our friend, John Coltraines, of whom the good old Quaker had told us. We had to go very slow on the start, for this was a main thoroughfare and a state road, along which there was a good deal of travel. We were liable to run into rebels at most any time, but after about ten o’clock we had less danger of meeting with any travelers on the way. There were squads of rebels traveling along this road at all hours of the night, so we concluded to travel and make all the headway possible. We had traveled most of the night, which was far spent, and I had been stopping all along the way asking for something to eat, but had not been able to get anything. Once or twice I had been driven from the door with double-barreled shot guns. [Illustration]