"You have been on it as we came down."

"Yes, sir, as a matter of curiosity."

"Don't you know how to start and stop her!"

"Yes, that is easy enough; but if any thing should go wrong I could
not adjust it."

"No difference, no difference, sir; I must be at Bowling Green
to-morrow, and you must put us through."

I looked him in the eye, and said calmly, "Colonel Williams, I can
not voluntarily take the responsibility of managing a train with a
thousand men aboard, nor will I be forced to do it under a guard who
know nothing about an engine, and who would be as likely to shoot
me for doing my duty as failing to do it; but if you will find
among the men a fireman, send away this guard, and come yourself on
the locomotive, I will do the best I can."

And now commenced my apprenticeship to running a Secession railroad
train, with a Rebel regiment on board. The engine behaved admirably,
and I began to feel quite safe, for she obeyed every command I gave
her, as if she acknowledged me her rightful lord.

I could not but be startled at the position in which I was placed,
holding in my hand the lives of more than a thousand men, running a
train of twenty-five cars over a road I had never seen, running
without a head-light, and the road so dark that I could only see a