fairly started. We uncoupled it in the middle of the bridge, and with
painful suspense waited the issue. Oh for a few minutes till the work of
conflagration was fairly begun! There was still steam pressure enough in
our boiler to carry us to the next wood-yard, where we could have
replenished our fuel by force, if necessary, so as to run as near to
Chattanooga as was deemed prudent. We did not know of the telegraph
message which the pursuers had sent ahead. But, alas! the minutes were
not given. Before the bridge was extensively fired the enemy was upon
us, and we moved slowly onward, looking back to see what they would do
next. We had not long to conjecture. The Confederates pushed right into
the smoke, and drove the burning car before them to the next side-track.

With no car left, and no fuel, the last scrap having thrown into the
engine or upon the burning car, and with no obstruction to drop on the
track, our situation was indeed desperate. A few minutes only remained
until our steed of iron which had so well served us would be powerless.

But it might still be possible to save ourselves. If we left the train
in a body, and, taking a direct course toward the Union lines, hurried
over the mountains at right angles with their course, we could not, from
the nature of the country, be followed by cavalry, and could easily
travel--athletic young men as we were, and fleeing for life--as rapidly
as any pursuers. There was no telegraph in the mountainous districts
west and northwest of us, and the prospect of reaching the Union lines
seemed to me then, and has always since seemed, very fair. Confederate
pursuers with whom I have since conversed freely have agreed on two
points--that we could have escaped in the manner here pointed out, and
that an attack on the pursuing train would likely have been successful.
But Andrews thought otherwise, at least in relation to the former plan,
and ordered us to jump from the locomotive one by one, and, dispersing