Coming near to Lake City we fell in with some negros who had been brought from Maryland.  We stopped over one day with them, to rest, and two of them concluded to go with us.  We were furnished with a lot of cooked provisions, and starting one night made forty-two miles before morning.  We kept the negros in advance.  I told Hommat that it was a poor command that could not afford an advance guard.  After traveling two nights with the, negros, we came near Baldwin.  Here I was very much afraid of recapture, and I did not want the negros with us, if we were, lest we should be shot for slave-stealing.  About daylight of the second morning we gave them the slip.

We had to skirt Baldwin closely, to head the St. Mary’s River, or cross it where that was easiest.  After crossing the river we came to a very large swamp, in the edge of which we lay all day.  Before nightfall we started to go through it, as there was no fear of detection in these swamps.  We got through before it was very dark, and as we emerged from it we discovered a dense cloud of smoke to our right and quite close.  We decided this was a camp, and while we were talking the band began to play.  This made us think that probably our forces had come out from Fernandina, and taken the place.  I proposed to Hommat that we go forward and reconnoiter.  He refused, and leaving him alone, I started forward.  I had gone but a short distance when a soldier came out from the camp with a bucket.  He began singing, and the song he sang convinced me that he was a Rebel.  Rejoining Hommat, we held a consultation and decided to stay where we were until it became darker, before trying to get out.  It was the night of the 22d of December, and very cold for that country.  The camp guard had small fires built, which we could see quite plainly.  After starting we saw that the pickets also had fires, and that we were between the two lines.  This discovery saved us from capture, and keeping about an equal distance between the two, we undertook to work our way out.

We first crossed a line of breastworks, then in succession the Fernandina Railroad, the Jacksonville Railroad, and pike, moving all the time nearly parallel with the picket line.  Here we had to halt.  Hommat was suffering greatly with his feet.  The shoes that had been given him by the widow lady were worn out, and his feet were much torn and cut by the terribly rough road we had traveled through swamps, etc.  We sat down on a log, and I, pulling off the remains of my army shirt, tore it into pieces, and Hommat wrapped his feet up in them.  A part I reserved and tore into strips, to tie up the rents in our pantaloons.  Going through the swamps and briers had torn them into tatters, from waistband to hem, leaving our skins bare to be served in the same way.