During this period of a more quiet Confederate rule over the region, there was an occasional escapade of persons from the Gulf States through East Tennessee to the North. Secretly a system had been perfected by which they and other refugees were directed from point to point and supplied with means of conveyance by resident citizens--well known to each other and their special friends--whose names were never exposed as helpers in such a work. One of this class of travellers was Mr. B., a native of Connecticut, but for many recent years a respectable, peaceable citizen of a State south of Tennessee. At the advent of the war, knowing that he had the esteem generally of his neighbors, he did not think of being disturbed during its progress, in the quiet pursuit of his lawful business. After the conflict had fairly begun, the passions of men made them sharply sensitive to the presence of one, whose antecedents formed a ground of suspicion that he was not “loyal to the South.” He belonged by birth to the hated race of “Yankees,” and although he was discreet of speech and well behaved, it was supposed that he could not well enough love the production of cotton by slave labor, to be allowed in the town at such a critical time. Therefore he received in writing an anonymous warning to leave the country, but he refused to heed it. Another was sent to him with the same result, and yet another. At length he was threatened in an open and positive way, that forced him to answer with emphasis, “They told me,” said Mr. B., speaking with a decided nasal twang, “they told me I must leave or forfeit my life, and I told them _I would forfeit my life!_” He was evidently such a man as Hosea Biglow would admire. George Borrow says, “When threatened by danger, the best policy is to fix your eye steadily upon it and it will in general vanish like the morning mist before the rising sun; whereas, if you quail before it, it is sure to become more imminent.” The result of that policy by Mr. B., was that without further molestation, he was permitted to continue his residence in the town. Long afterwards, he chose to depart with a young man as companion, and passed through Knoxville to Morristown, where Mr. N. would provide them conveyance over the mountains into Kentucky.