Gen. Foster had received a wound during the Mexican war, from the effects of which he still now and then suffered, and which furnished a convenient reason for his being refused to unwelcome visitors. Upon one very cold afternoon, two visits in quick succession were made to a citizen, by persons who sought his mediation with General Foster. First came a committee of Free Masons. A Kentuckian, who belonged to a Texas regiment, had been unavoidably separated from it at the time of Longstreet’s retreat from Knoxville, and he had endeavored to rejoin it through the country south of the Tennessee river. In doing this, he had unfortunately for himself, worn, in part at least, the uniform of a Federal soldier, and had also entered in his diary that he had represented himself as one, in conversation with a woman. He was captured while hiding in a hay stack, was brought to Knoxville, tried by court-martial and condemned to death as a spy. Strong sympathy was felt for him by resident friends of the Confederacy, and this was shared by the Free Masons, of which fraternity he was a member. A committee of that order desired the citizen they visited to intercede with Gen. Foster to reprieve the prisoner until further proof of his innocence, which they believed to exist, could be produced. They had scarcely gone, when a regimental officer from Mississippi made his appearance. Longstreet, in going eastward, had left in a hospital at the paper mill three miles northwest of the town, a number of wounded men, among whom were officers Moody and Smith. The former was suffering from heart disease, which did not, however, prevent his really distinguished presence upon the streets. His remarkable stature and aristocratic physique crowned with a planter’s broad-brimmed hat, and his lordly bearing, combined to embody the idea which the natives entertained of “Southern chivalry,” and to attract special attention. He was said to be withal, a cousin of the Rev. Granville Moody, of the United States Army, and known as “the fighting parson.” The other Confederate officer was Major Smith, who because of his wounds, was still confined to his room in a private dwelling. On that day some rebel soldiers at the town had broken their parole, seized guns and absconded. In consequence. Gen. Foster had ordered that all other Confederate prisoners on parole should be arrested and sent to jail. This confinement Major Moody averred that he and Major Smith were physically unable to endure in such severe weather; and his request was that the citizen should intercede with the Commander-in-chief to still allow them liberty in the town. Equipped with this double errand, the citizen went on his way over the sleety pavements to that officer’s dwelling and said to the orderly who opened the door: “I wish to see General Foster.” “General Foster can’t be seen; he is sick.”