a few months previous our General Rosecrans had shot two Southern officers for doing what I was now doing. I was in great peril, when a Colonel Hill, Chief Provost Marshal of their army, said, for the present, anyway, I should be put back among the prisoners at Macon. Almost the same night, I was selected, with some two hundred others, to be taken to Charleston, to be put under the fire of the Yankee fleet, then bombarding the city. The barbarism of the act, the excitement and confusion soon following, led to a complete forgetfulness of me. I never heard again of the charges against me. General Sherman had listened to the story in perfect silence. Then rising and giving the coals in the fire a violent stir with the poker, he exclaimed: “By God! that was an experience. Had you gotten through the lines that day, it might have changed everything. It might have saved ten thousand lives.”[2] _Christmas Eve._--The voyage on the “Celtic” is over, and to-night finds Miss Sherman and myself in Merry England. I soon left Miss Sherman with friends in Paris, and hurried home to Switzerland. Later, after some rambling in Italy, she came and spent a month with us in our home by the lake. Two or three letters from her father at this time, though purely personal, are not without interest: “WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan. 3, 1873. “DEAR BYERS: We have all written to Minnie several times, but, I fear, we have overlooked the fact that you must have separated in Paris soon after Christmas, but I hope she was thoughtful enough to write you our several general messages of respect and fond wishes. I was in New York last Monday, Dec. 23d; called at the office of the White Line, and got the agent, Mr. Sparks, to promise to give me the first possible news of the ‘Celtic.’ That night I was at the New England dinner at Delmonico’s, and received a note from Sparks saying the ‘Celtic’ was reported off Queenstown that night at 10:30, and that is all I know of her, and of the details of your passage, up to the present moment. The next morning I telegraphed to Mrs. Sherman here, and to your father at Oskaloosa. All the ships that came over at the same time report heavy westerly weather, so I suspect you had a rough passage after passing the banks of Newfoundland, though the westerly wind rather favored your speed. My supposition is that you did not enter Queenstown, but put the mails on some tug that went outside, and that you put into Liverpool the 24th, too late for London or Paris for Christmas Day, and I hope you found out General Fairchild and spent the day with him and Mrs. Fairchild. We will begin to look for letters from Minnie about Monday next--this is Thursday. The weather in all North America has been severe since you left us, except for two or three days after you sailed. The ground is covered with heavy snow. Yesterday (New Year’s) was, however, strictly observed, and we had a full house of visitors all day.