From La Grange to Memphis the distance is forty-seven miles.  There were no troops stationed between these two points, except a small force guarding a working party which was engaged in repairing the railroad.  Not knowing where this party would be found I halted at La Grange.  General Hurlbut was in command there at the time and had his headquarters tents pitched on the lawn of a very commodious country house.  The proprietor was at home and, learning of my arrival, he invited General Hurlbut and me to dine with him.  I accepted the invitation and spent a very pleasant afternoon with my host, who was a thorough Southern gentleman fully convinced of the justice of secession.  After dinner, seated in the capacious porch, he entertained me with a recital of the services he was rendering the cause.  He was too old to be in the ranks himself—­he must have been quite seventy then—­but his means enabled him to be useful in other ways.  In ordinary times the homestead where he was now living produced the bread and meat to supply the slaves on his main plantation, in the low-lands of Mississippi.  Now he raised food and forage on both places, and thought he would have that year a surplus sufficient to feed three hundred families of poor men who had gone into the war and left their families dependent upon the “patriotism” of those better off.  The crops around me looked fine, and I had at the moment an idea that about the time they were ready to be gathered the “Yankee” troops would be in the neighborhood and harvest them for the benefit of those engaged in the suppression of the rebellion instead of its support.  I felt, however, the greatest respect for the candor of my host and for his zeal in a cause he thoroughly believed in, though our views were as wide apart as it is possible to conceive.

The 23d of June, 1862, on the road from La Grange to Memphis was very warm, even for that latitude and season.  With my staff and small escort I started at an early hour, and before noon we arrived within twenty miles of Memphis.  At this point I saw a very comfortable-looking white-haired gentleman seated at the front of his house, a little distance from the road.  I let my staff and escort ride ahead while I halted and, for an excuse, asked for a glass of water.  I was invited at once to dismount and come in.  I found my host very genial and communicative, and staid longer than I had intended, until the lady of the house announced dinner and asked me to join them.  The host, however, was not pressing, so that I declined the invitation and, mounting my horse, rode on.

About a mile west from where I had been stopping a road comes up from the southeast, joining that from La Grange to Memphis.  A mile west of this junction I found my staff and escort halted and enjoying the shade of forest trees on the lawn of a house located several hundred feet back from the road, their horses hitched to the fence along the line of the road.  I, too, stopped and we remained there until the cool of the afternoon, and then rode into Memphis.