“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” he cried.

“Put up your pistol and so will I,” I replied.

He did so, and came forward, and I explained the impossibility of seeing the train sooner, as I had no head-light, and they had carelessly neglected to leave a light on the rear of the other train.  I advised the choleric colonel to go forward and expend his wrath and curses on the conductor of the forward train, that had stopped in such a place, and sent out no signal-man in the rear, nor even left a red light.  He acknowledged I was right.  I then informed him that I was an officer in the ordnance department, and was in charge of a shipment of ammunition for Bowling Green, and would have him court-martialed when we reached there, unless he apologized for the threats he had made.  This information had a calming effect on the colonel, who at heart was really a clever fellow.  He afterward came and begged my pardon; we shook hands cordially, and were good friends.

Having settled this talk of shooting, and put the responsibility where it belonged, we had time to look at the damage done by the collision.  It was nothing compared with what it might and would have been, if we had been running at high speed.  Even as it was, it stirred up the sleeping men not a little.  The front train contained a regiment of men, most of whom were asleep, while the employees were repairing an accident to one of the truck-wheels of a car.  They had it “jacked up,"’ and had all the lights available, including the one from the rear of the train, to aid in their repairs.  When we struck them they were driven ahead some thirty feet, and of course their disabled car was still more damaged.  Our men were all suddenly waked up, and some of them slightly bruised.  The colonel himself was thrown down by the shock, but fortunately did not roll off the car, and was but little injured; and there were no lives lost, except of three of the horses.  But we had a toilsome night of it.  The debris of the three cars which had been smashed up was carried back through the cut, between the train and the steep sides, and thrown down into the gorge, off the trestlework.  The dead horses were drawn up the bank with ropes, and the front train put in running order, after six hours of hard work by as many men as could be employed in such narrow quarters.  As the day broke, the forward train moved off; in a few minutes more we followed, and reached Paris by seven o’clock, A.M., December 18, 1861.  Thus began and ended my railroad-engineering in Rebeldom.  At Paris they found a professional runner, and I resumed my uniform, very thankful to get out of the profession so creditably.  Reader, the next time I run a railroad train in such circumstances, may you be there to see it.

On the 19th of December I reached Bowling Green, and found there a larger army than I had before seen,—­65,000 men at least,—­under General Albert Sidney Johnson as commander-in-chief, with Generals Buckner, Hardee, Hindman, and Breckenridge on the ground.  Floyd came within a few days, bringing about 7000 more.  Others were soon added, for on the 25th of December the commissary-general issued 96,000 rations, and by January 1, 1862, 120,000 rations a day.  The number of rations shows the whole number attached to the army in every capacity.