and showing him my commission, stated that I wanted to go
into active service as a scout. He said that he thought there would soon be a chance for me; which was so nearly like the answers I had received from a number of other commanders, that I did not feel especially encouraged by it. It really meant about as much as similar remarks made by others, for nothing came of it, and I was compelled to drift about, looking out myself for something to do to kill time while waiting in hope that the current of events would shape themselves in a mariner favorable to my idea.
At this period of the war I could have been employed to very great advantage as a spy, to go to and fro through the lines; and there is no doubt that I could, with comparative ease, have obtained information of the first value to the Confederate commanders. The Federals, as we all knew, were making immense preparations for an important forward movement; and had I been employed as I wanted to be, I could, most likely, have succeeded in saving the Confederates from waiting for defeat to teach them what they ought to have known while making their preparations to meet the enemy.
Perhaps if General Hardee, and others, had known exactly who and what I was, and what were my particular talents in the line of duty I desired to follow, they would have shown a greater disposition to afford me opportunities to signalize myself. They did see, however, that I was ready, willing, and, apparently, able to work; and I scarcely think that they were blameless in not, at least, giving me a fair trial.
The Fight at Woodsonville.
I was bent, however, notwithstanding the disappointment under which I labored, on showing my devotion to the cause of Southern independence ; and, in accordance with my general plan of not letting slip an opportunity of being on hand when there was any real, serious work to be done, I took part in the fight at Woodsonville, on Green River, and faced the enemy as valiantly as anybody. In this fight, Colonel Terry, a brave Texan officer, whom I greatly admired, was among the slain.
The affair at Woodsonville was something of a diversion from the monotony of camp life, but it did not satisfy my ambition or my intense desire for active service ; and coming to the conclusion that lounging about Bowling Green and vicinity
