be pressed in again. He had taken this method of escaping to our lines.
It was a common story enough, but General Mower added in his message that
he thought the story fishy. This was because the man's appearance was
very striking, and he seemed the type of Confederate fighter who would do
and dare anything. He had a wound, which had been a bad one, evidently
got from a piece of shell. But they had been able to find nothing on him.
Sherman sent back word to keep the man until he could see him in person.
It was about nine o'clock last night when I reached the house the General
has taken. A prisoner's guard was resting outside, and the hall was full
of officers. They said that the General was awaiting me, and pointed to
the closed door of a room that had been the dining room. I opened it.

Two candles were burning in pewter sticks on the bare mahogany table.
There was the General sitting beside them, with his legs crossed, holding
some crumpled tissue paper very near his eyes, and reading. He did not
look up when I entered. I was aware of a man standing, tall and straight,
just out of range of the candles' rays. He wore the easy dress of a
Southern planter, with the broad felt hat. The head was flung back so
that there was just a patch of light on the chin, and the lids of the
eyes in the shadow were half closed.

My sensations are worth noting. For the moment I felt precisely as I had
when I was hit by that bullet in Lauman's charge. I was aware of
something very like pain, yet I could not place the cause of it. But this
is what since has made me feel queer: you doubtless remember staying at
Hollingdean, when I was a boy, and hearing the story of Lord Northwell's
daredevil Royalist ancestor,--the one with the lace collar over the
dull-gold velvet, and the pointed chin, and the lazy scorn in the eyes.
Those eyes are painted with drooping lids. The first time I saw Clarence
Colfax I thought of that picture--and now I thought of the picture first.