was Sunday afternoon, June 26th, 1865, when George and I, having made ready for the start for the Union lines, went to bid our wives good-bye.  I told my wife to cheer up, as I was coming again to get her.  I said to Kitty, George’s wife:  “We are going, but look for us again.  It will not be with us as with so many others, who have gone away, leaving their families and never returning for them.  We will be here again.”  She looked up at me, smiling, and with a look of resolution, said:  “I’ll be ready.”  She was of a firm, daring nature—­I did not fear to tell her all my plans.  As my wife was so timid, I said as little as possible to her.  George and I hurriedly said our farewells to our wives.  The parting was heartrending, for we knew the dangers were great, and the chances were almost even that we should not meet again.  I could hardly leave my wife, her agitation and grief were so great.  But we were off in a few moments.  We crept through the orchard, passing through farm after farm until we struck the railroad, about seven miles from home.  We followed this road until we reached Senatobia, about half past seven in the evening.  We felt good, and, stopping all night, we started the next morning for Hernando, Miss., another small town, and reached there at two o’clock in the afternoon.  The most of the bridges had been burned, by the troops, and there were no regular railroad trains.  Fortunately, however, flat cars, drawn by horses were run over the road; and on a train of this kind we took passage.  On several occasions, the passengers had to get out, and push the car over a bridge, as it was not made so horses could cross on it, the horses meantime being driven or led through the stream, and then hitched to the car again.  After we had gone through this process repeatedly, we at last reached Memphis, arriving about seven o’clock Monday evening.  The city was filled with slaves, from all over the south, who cheered and gave us a welcome.  I could scarcely recognize Memphis, things were so changed.  We met numbers of our fellow servants who had run away before us, when the war began.  Tuesday and Wednesday we spent in making inquiries; and I visited our old home at McGee’s station.  But how different it was from what it had been when the McGees were there.  All was changed.  Thursday we went to see Col.  Walker, a Union officer, who looked after the colored folks, and saw that they had their rights.  When we reached his office we found it so filled with people, waiting to see him, that we were delayed about two hours, before we had an opportunity of speaking with him.  When our turn came, we went in, and told him that we were citizens of Memphis until the fall of Fort Pillow and Donelson, when our master had run us off, with a hundred other slaves, into Mississippi, and thence to the salt works in Alabama.  He questioned us as to where we lived in Memphis.  I answered:  “What is now headquarters of the Union forces was the home of master, Mr. Edmund McGee, who is now dead.”  After