To judge by the number of times I had to get off and walk,” continued Jack, “it was up-hill pretty nearly all the way to Fayetteville. A wounded major of the rebel army was put in the ambulance alongside of Colonel Herron, and when we got to Fayetteville I had to give up my place to a rebel captain who had been shot in the arm. Of course I couldn't complain at this, and thought myself lucky to have been allowed to ride so far as I did ride. I had to walk the rest of the way, and though I was young and strong, it was impossible for me to keep up with the ambulance when they had a good road. But as most of the road was bad and a good deal blocked by wagons, I managed to be along with the ambulance every night and two or three times generally during the day. It was lucky for me that the ambulance horses were pretty well tired out with overwork and poor feed, and at one time the driver was afraid he would n't be able to get them through to Van Buren, where we had been ordered to go.

“There were six men on horseback who rode along with the ambulance, to make sure that we did n't get away. Our captors were evidently mindful of the old motto, 'Fast bind, fast find,' and they had us not only on our parole, but under guard. When it was found that I had to walk I was put with half-a-dozen other prisoners in charge of two of the mounted men. They were rather surly at first, but after a while we got on good terms with them by helping them to pick up forage for their horses, of which they were in great need. There was n't much to be picked up, as the country had been pretty thoroughly cleaned out by the army in its advance to attack us, and in the previous retreat when we first came into the state.

“The road over the Boston mountains is a rough one, and the wagons could n't get along there any faster than men on foot; they had to go slow to avoid breaking axles and smashing wheels, and all along the road there were dozens of wagons that had broken down and been abandoned. Soon after we left Fayetteville the news came that the army had been defeated and was falling back, but this was treated as a rumor at first, and our rebel guards laughed at it as absurd. A few hours later some mounted men came along carrying dispatches to Fort Smith, and then we heard positively that our side had won and the rebels were really falling back.

“I wanted to raise a cheer, but thought it would not be wise to do so, as our guards might make it harder for us if we made any sort of a demonstration. I passed the word among the rest, and we agreed to pretend that it could n't be so, as our army was so much smaller than theirs and we had used up nearly all our ammunition at the time we were captured. We consoled ourselves with the reflection that we should probably be exchanged before long, as we ought to have prisoners enough in our hands to make an even trade.

“We camped as soon as night came on, and I had no trouble in finding the colonel's ambulance and giving him all the help and comfort that I could. His wounded leg pained him a good deal, and the rebel surgeon said it would be better if it could be bathed in cold water.

“I went at work at once and bathed the swollen part so that it visibly went down, and the pain was much less. I was at it for a full hour, and then the colonel made me lie down and sleep, as he would n't hear of my being up all night. I slept as sound as a log, but was up before daylight to give the leg another bath before we started. My friend, the rebel captain, came around while I was at work and said I seemed so handy that he reckoned they would keep me as a hospital attendant, and not send me back in exchange if they made any. I told him I did n't want to go back until the colonel did, and I was perfectly willing to be a hospital attendant as long as I could be with him.

“All along the road there was great curiosity to look at the Yankee prisoners and see what they were like. By the way some of the people stared at us, they must have expected to see some horrid monsters, and were really surprised to find that we were human beings. Some of them abused us, and others looked on in silence, as they might have looked at an elephant or a five-legged calf. At one house, where we stopped to get a drink of water, a woman came out and lashed her tongue in a fit of rage at the 'Yankee cut-throats,' as she called us. She hoped we would all be hanged as soon as we got to Fort Smith, and if she had her way we should be strung up then and there.

“Poor creature! I did not blame her so much, as she had been told the most awful stories of what the Yankees did wherever they got possession of the country. All the atrocities ever committed by savages were attributed to us, together with some that no savages ever thought of. One of our guards told us that he had heard of our putting fifty prisoners in a log-house, having bound them hand and foot, and piled them up as though they had been so many sticks of wood. Then we piled shavings and straw on them till the house was filled with it, and after this was done we set the straw on fire. The house and all the prisoners were consumed, as a matter of course. In another case we tied prisoners to trees and used them as targets for our infantry soldiers to practice upon when learning how to handle fire-arms.

“Of course the leaders knew better than this, but the stories were intended for the ignorant masses of the people, to excite them to rush to the defense of the imperiled South and save their homes from the desecration and destruction that they said would be certain if the Yankees once obtained possession of the country. But in one way they were 'hoist by their own petard,' to use an old phrase, as the fear of what might happen to them in case of capture caused many of the rebel soldiers at Pea Ridge to run away rather than face the terrible Yankees. From what the soldiers said, I'm certain that this is what caused several regiments to break and run after they had fired only a few rounds from their shotguns and squirrel-rifles.

“If this were a place for moralizing, I would say that lying never pays, whether by wholesale or retail. The rebel leaders in Arkansas found it out before the end of the second year of the war.

“We got to Van Buren, on the north bank of the Arkansas river, three days after leaving Bentonville, and were pretty well used up by the time they brought us to a halt. The colonel was sent to the military hospital, which was in some wooden barracks just outside the town, and I was allowed to go with him as his personal attendant, on the same conditions as before. I ought to say that on the closing day of the journey I got my old place on the seat by the driver for the last five or six hours, the wounded captain having stopped in a house where he had friends who would take care of him until his arm was well enough to allow him to return to his regiment.

“There was plenty of room in the hospital when we got there, but the wounded came in fast, and within two days it was crowded full. I made myself as useful as I could, and soon got into the good graces of the surgeons, by helping them to dress wounds and do anything else that came in my way. I was about the hospital during the day, and could come and go as I liked, only I was under parole not to go outside the building and the one adjoining it. At night I slept in a sort of a guard-room at one end of the building, but there was n't much of a guard there, and I might have run away without any trouble if it had not been for my parole not to do so. It is just possible, however, that I was watched in a way I was not aware of, and my old friend may have 'looked out for me,' as he promised to do.

“The army followed closely after us, and there was no doubt of the defeat and retreat of the rebels. The soldiers were very much disappointed and disheartened, and if they could have got away without rendering themselves liable to be shot for desertion, I'm sure that half of them would have gone within two days after they got back to camp. As it was, there was a great deal of straggling, and I heard an officer say they had lost not less than five thousand men in one way and another by the campaign to Pea Ridge and back again.

“By the fourteenth the whole army, such of it as held together, had come in and was encamped around Van Buren. Some of the regiments were ferried over the river to Fort Smith, but the most of the troops remained on the north bank. I did n't have much chance to see them, as I was kept in the limits of the hospital, but so far as I could observe they were a forlorn-looking lot.

“Only a few regiments wore the gray uniforms of the Confederacy, the greater number of the men being clad in the ordinary home-spun cloth of the country familiarly known as 'butternut.' During the Pea Ridge campaign they had been very poorly fed—some of them going for thirty or forty hours during the retreat without a morsel of food other than a few grains of corn; raw turnips and carrots had been considered a luxury, and the men who secured them were envied. Raw cabbages were eagerly devoured, but unfortunately the country was not stocked with these products of the soil, or the troops might have been better fed.”