As I have written you, I have been under fire very little since coming to
the staff. When the battle opened, however, I saw that if I stayed with
the General (who was then behind the reserves) I would see little or
nothing; I went ahead "to get information" beyond the line of battle into
the woods. I did not find these favorable to landscape views, and just as
I was turning my horse back again I caught sight of a commotion some
distance to my right. The Rebel skirmish line had fallen back just that
instant, two of our skirmishers were grappling with a third man, who was
fighting desperately. It struck me as singular that the fellow was not in
gray, but had on some sort of dark clothes.

I could not reach them in the swamp on horseback, and was in the act of
dismounting when the man fell, and then they set out to carry him to the
rear, still farther to my right, beyond the swamp. I shouted, and one of
the skirmishers came up. I asked him what the matter was.

"We've got a spy, sir," he said excitedly.

"A spy! Here?"

"Yes, Major. He was hid in the thicket yonder, lying flat on his face. He
reckoned that our boys would run right over him and that he'd get into
our lines that way. Tim Foley stumbled on him, and he put up as good a
fight with his fists as any man I ever saw."

Just then a regiment swept past us. That night I told the General, who
sent over to the headquarters of the 17th Corps to inquire. The word came
back that the man's name was Addison, and he claimed to be a Union
sympathizer who owned a plantation near by. He declared that he had been
conscripted by the Rebels, wounded, sent back home, and was now about to