They
were getting ready, themselves, to fall back on some place or other, and
were only waiting for General Tom Harris, who was expected to arrive at
any moment; so they tried to persuade us to wait a little while, but the
majority of us said no, we were accustomed to falling back, and didn't
need any of Tom Harris's help; we could get along perfectly well without
him and save time too. So about half of our fifteen, including myself,
mounted and left on the instant; the others yielded to persuasion and
stayed--stayed through the war.
An hour later we met General Harris on the road, with two or three people
in his company--his staff, probably, but we could not tell; none of them
was in uniform; uniforms had not come into vogue among us yet. Harris
ordered us back; but we told him there was a Union colonel coming with a
whole regiment in his wake, and it looked as if there was going to be a
disturbance; so we had concluded to go home. He raged a little, but it
was of no use; our minds were made up. We had done our share; had killed
one man, exterminated one army, such as it was; let him go and kill the
rest, and that would end the war.
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