An hour before I would have scrambled back as quickly as possible,
knowing that an instant's hesitation would be followed by a bullet.
Now, I looked him in the face, and said as irritatingly as possible:

"O, you go to ----, you Rebel. I'm going into Uncle Sam's lines with as
little Rebel filth on me as possible."

He passed me without replying.

His day of shooting was past.

Descending from the cars, we passed through the guards into our lines,
a Rebel and a Union clerk checking us off as we passed. By the time it
was dark we were all under our flag again.

The place where we came through was several miles west of Wilmington,
where the railroad crossed a branch of the Cape Fear River. The point
was held by a brigade of Schofield's army--the Twenty-Third Army Corps.

The boys lavished unstinted kindness upon us. All of the brigade off
duty crowded around, offering us blankets, shirts shoes, pantaloons and
other articles of clothing and similar things that we were obviously in
the greatest need of. The sick were carried, by hundreds of willing
hands, to a sheltered spot, and laid upon good, comfortable beds
improvised with leaves and blankets. A great line of huge, generous
fires was built, that every one of us could have plenty of place around
them.

By and by a line of wagons came over from Wilmington laden with rations,