They had provided themselves with a small quantity of food, but had no definite plans.  It quickly occurred to them, however, that they had better make their way down the peninsula, towards Fortress Monroe, as the nearest locality where Union troops could probably be found.  With the polar star for guide they set out, having left the perilous precincts of the city in their rear.

To travel by night, to hide by day, was their chosen plan.  The end of their first night’s journey found them in the vicinity of a swamp, some five miles from Richmond.  Here, hid behind a screen of brushwood and evergreen bushes, they spent the long and anxious day, within hearing of the noises of the camps around the city, but without discovery.

A day had made a gratifying change in their situation.  The day before they had been prisoners, with no apparent prospect of freedom for months.  This day they were free, even if in a far from agreeable situation.  Liberty solaced them for the weariness of that day’s anxious vigil.  How long they would remain free was the burning question of the hour.  They were surrounded with perils.  Could they hope to pass through them in safety?  This only the event could tell.

The wintry cold was one of their difficulties.  Their meagre stock of food was another.  They divided this up into very small rations, with the hope that they could make it last for six days.  The second night they moved in an easterly direction, and near morning ventured to approach a small cabin, which proved to be, as they had hoped, occupied by a negro.  He gave them directions as to their course, and all the food he had,—­a small piece of pone bread.

That day they suffered much, in their hiding place, from the cold.  That night, avoiding roads, they made their way through swamp and thicket, finding themselves in the morning chilled with wet clothing and torn by briers.  Near morning of the third night they reached what seemed to be a swamp.  They concluded to rest on its borders till dawn, and then pass through it.  Sleep came to them here.  When they wakened it was full day, and an agreeable surprise greeted their eyes.  What they supposed to be a swamp proved to be the Chickahominy River.  The prospect of meeting this stream had given them much mental anxiety.  Captain Rowan could not swim.  Captain Earle had no desire to do so, in February.  How it was to be crossed had troubled them greatly.  As they opened their eyes now, the problem was solved.  There lay a fallen tree, neatly bridging the narrow stream!  In less than five minutes they were safely on the other side of this dreaded obstacle, and with far better prospects than they had dreamed of a few hours before.