Federal lines.  But this was not easily effected.  The Confederates sent their gold to Europe by millions to buy arms and munitions of war, relying upon the patriotism of the people to keep up the credit of the national currency; and lest brokers should undertake to depreciate it, they passed a law imposing a heavy penalty upon any one who should discount Confederate notes.  For a time this succeeded in keeping up the credit of the circulating medium; but all gold disappeared, and silver change was unknown.  But as I must have gold, I walked into a broker’s office and stated that I wished to purchase seven ounces of gold, and exhibited a roll of Confederate notes.  After a little figuring, he said seven ounces would cost me two hundred and seventy dollars of my money.  I replied, “Weigh it out.”

“Bullion or coin?”

I answered that coin was more convenient to carry.  The coin was weighed, and I retired, wondering if anybody had broken the law forbidding the discount of Confederate scrip.

After leaving Montgomery by the railroad train for Chattanooga on the morning of the 27th, I fell in with a soldier whose name I must for the sake of his family, who showed me great kindness, conceal.  He said he was going home on furlough.  As I then suspected and afterward learned, he was deserting, while I was escaping.  A fellow-feeling, though at first unconfessed to each other, drew us together, and at length I learned his whole history.  My greater caution and accustomed reticence, gave him but a meager idea of my adventures or purposes.  His story, reaffirmed to me when near death some weeks later, is worth recital, especially as it illustrates both the strength of the Rebel Government, and the desperate lengths to which they go in pressing men into the service.

The conscription act passed by the Confederate Congress went into operation on May 16th, 1862.  By this law all able-bodied white male citizens, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, were actually taken into the service; that is, they were taken from their homes, placed in camps of instruction, and forwarded to the armies in the field as fast as needed.  Another clause of the act required the enrolling of all between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five years, as a reserve militia, to serve in their own State in case of invasion.  As their States have all been “invaded,” this virtually sweeps into the Southern army all white men able to bear arms between eighteen and fifty-five years of age.  Another clause provided that all persons then in the army, under eighteen and over thirty-five, might return home discharged from the service within ninety days after the act took effect, provided, their regiments were filled up with conscripts.  By this provision the regiments would be kept full.  Still another clause directed that the twelve-months men now in the service, should “be allowed” (i.e., required), “at the expiration of their twelve months to elect new officers, and take the