As the negros returned from work in the evening they separated, one old man passing on the opposite side of the thicket from the rest.  We halted him and told him that we were Rebs, who had taken a French leave of Thomasville; that we were tired of guarding Yanks, and were going home; and further, that we were hungry, and wanted something to eat.  He told us that he was the boss on the plantation.  His master lived in Thomasville.  He, himself, did not have much to eat, but he would show us where to stay, and when the folks went to bed he would bring us some food.  Passing up close to the negro quarters we got over the fence and lay down behind it, to wait for our supper.

We had been there but a short time when a young negro came out, and passing close by us, went into a fence corner a few panels distant and, kneeling down, began praying aloud, and very, earnestly, and stranger still, the burden of his supplication was for the success of our armies.  I thought it the best prayer I ever listened to.  Finishing his devotions he returned to the house, and shortly after the old man came with a good supper of corn bread, molasses and milk.  He said that he had no meat, and that he had done the best he could for us.  After we had eaten, he said that as the young people had gone to bed, we had better come into his cabin and rest awhile, which we did.

Hommat had a full suit of Rebel clothes, and I had stolen sacks enough at Andersonville, when they were issuing rations, to make me a shirt and pantaloons, which a sailor fabricated for me.  I wore these over what was left of my blue clothes.  The old negro lady treated us very coolly.  In a few minutes a young negro came in, whom the old gentleman introduced as his son, and whom I immediately recognized as our friend of the prayerful proclivities.  He said that he had been a body servant to his young master, who was an officer in the Rebel army.

“Golly!” says he, “if you ’uns had stood a little longer at Stone River, our men would have run.”

I turned to him sharply with the question of what he meant by calling us “You ’uns,” and asked him if he believed we were Yankees.  He surveyed us carefully for a few seconds, and then said: 

“Yes; I bleav you is Yankees.”

He paused a second, and added: 

“Yes, I know you is.”

I asked him how he knew it, and he said that we neither looked nor talked like their men.  I then acknowledged that we were Yankee prisoners, trying to make our escape to our lines.  This announcement put new life into the old lady, and, after satisfying herself that we were really Yankees, she got up from her seat, shook hands with us, and declared we must have a better supper than we had had.  She set immediately about preparing it for us.  Taking up a plank in the floor, she pulled out a nice flitch of bacon, from which she cut as much as we could eat, and gave us some to carry with us.  She got up a real substantial supper, to which we did full justice, in spite of the meal we had already eaten.