The fifty-mile river trip brought me at the end of the day to the landing at Kelly's Ferry. Then I had an eight-mile walk before me to the camps, where I arrived late in the evening. I soon found the regiment or the small remnant of it that I was looking for; but then I learned that my brother was beyond doubt a prisoner in the hands of the enemy.
I spent a day in visiting about Chattanooga. The enemy occupied a line from the Tennessee River, above town, to the point of Lookout Mountain below. At no place were they near enough to throw shells into the city, save from their heavy guns on Lookout Mountain. From these, shells came over all day at intervals of ten or fifteen minutes and exploded high in the air over either our camps or the city. So far as I could see, however, they did little damage.
Shortly after my return to my Regiment, I was detailed to investigate the killing of a negro by a white man, not far from our post. The evidence showed that it was a most unprovoked murder, and I so reported. The man was thereupon arrested and sent to the provost marshal at Tullahoma. I never learned what was finally done with him. The curious thing about the affair was the frank astonishment of the man that anyone should take notice of the killing of a mere "nigger."
Toward the end of November a large number of Confederate prisoners, who had been captured in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, were being sent northward over the railroad. We often had conversation with them while the trains were stopping at our station. Some were still defiant, but most of them were discouraged, and many predicted that the Confederacy could not last six months longer. An unusually large number of deserters of all ranks from colonel downward, were also coming in, and they likewise professed to believe that the Confederacy was tottering.
In December a general order was issued from the War Department, providing for the reënlistment of veteran regiments. It provided for a liberal bounty for all who reënlisted as veterans after two years' service; but it offered what was a greater temptation than anything else, the chance to go home for thirty days as a regiment, with the opportunity to recruit up to the full standard. I explained to my Company all the advantages of this arrangement. Their term of service would not expire until the end of June. By that time the fighting would probably be well over with. By reënlisting now they would secure the bounty, the thirty days furlough, and the honorable record of veteran soldiers, and it would be possible to preserve our organization from the beginning to the end of the war.