after the mail about 500 yards from the soldiers' camp. I told the
sergeant that I wanted an escort at nine o'clock in the morning. He gave
Captain Conkey my orders and the Captain told him to go back and arrest
me and put me in chains. The First Lieutenant told the Captain that I
would be there in the morning; that they had no place to sleep me, so
the Captain let me alone that night, but the next morning he sent his
orderly after me. When the orderly came to the station, he said to me,
"that old fool of a captain sent me down here to arrest you." I asked
him what he wanted with me. The orderly told me that he was to arrest me
for ordering an escort. I told the orderly to "fire away," I would go
over and see the old "mossback."

Their quarters was a little dugout in the side of the hill along the
river bank. They had a gunny sack for the door, and I went into the
first room, which was used for a kitchen, and the cook told me to go to
the next room, it had a gunny sack door, too, the First and Second
Lieutenants were in there. They told me to go on to the next room that
the Captain's headquarters was in the other room. I had my mittens and
overcoat on, and he said, "you pull off your hat, you insolent puppy,
and salute me." I replied to the Captain's kind words of greeting that,
"I will not salute you, but excuse me, I should have had manners enough
to have removed my hat." He told me that he "would put the irons" on me.
I answered him that I did not think he would do such an unmanly thing,
at least right then. This exasperated the haughty Captain, and he
hollowed for the First Lieutenant to come and put me in irons. I asked
him what he was there for, and he told me that it was "none of my
business." I then got pretty middling hot myself, and I told him that if
he did not know his business, that it was "up to me" to "put you next,"
or words to that extent. I told him that he was there for the purpose of
furnishing escorts for the United States mail and that it was I, and not