I had become so ill now that I could hold out no longer, and reported to the surgeon, and at eight o'clock on the morning of the 23rd was driven in an ambulance to a railway station and put with a lot of sick and wounded men on a train for Greensboro. I had had nothing to eat since about noon the day before, and when we got to Raleigh I got off and went to a near-by little cottage, where I saw a woman at the door, and told her that I was really very sick, and very hungry, and begged her for something to eat. I had not a cent of money. She told me pathetically that she had fed nearly all she had to the soldiers, but had a potato pie, and if I could eat that I would be welcome to it. I took it gratefully and it was the nicest potato pie I ever saw, before or since. We reached Greensboro at dark, making about 90 miles run in ten hours, very good for the speed of railway trains at that time. At Greensboro the court-house was used as the hospital, all the benches, desks, etc., being removed. We had no mattresses nor bedding of any kind, and about 200 of us were laid off in rows on the floor, with only our own blankets that we brought with us. After looking over the accommodations I selected the platform inside of the rail, where the judge's desk used to be, for my place, and went out into the street and begged an armful of hay from a wagon, and with two bricks for a pillow made my bed. Here I lay for about three weeks with fever, and at times really very ill. Three times a day the ladies of the town came and brought us food, and were devoted in their attentions. I got to be very weak, and on April 14th I told the surgeon that I was certainly getting worse, and believed I would die if I stayed where I was. His cold reply was, "I believe you will." I then asked to be allowed to go home. He said, "You will die before you have been out of the hospital twenty-four hours," to which I replied, "It is all the same with me. I would as lieve die in the bushes as here. Only let me make the attempt." Thereupon he gave me my furlough, and at daylight the next morning I put my blanket around me and walked right out into a drizzly rain. The railroad was torn up between Greensboro and Salisbury, so I walked along the track, and the next day reached High Point, and at that place met one of my comrades, who was in the hospital there. He smuggled me in and gave me a night's lodging under his blanket, and shared his scanty supper with me. The next day I struck out again, and after three or four more days walking reached Salisbury, about thirty miles farther, where I again found another comrade in the hospital at that place. With the exception of the night I had spent at High Point, it was my habit, when night overtook me, to step aside into the bushes and sleep until morning. What food I got was only what I begged at the farmhouses on the way.