The Fourth Tennessee Cavalry left Tracy City for Lebanon with a view of overtaking General Wheeler. A great many of our soldiers were permitted to go by their homes to remount themselves, pick up absentees, and obtain recruits if possible. I availed myself of this opportunity, thinking it was the last chance I would have to visit my family, residing in Gallatin, Tenn., whom I had not seen for nearly three years. An account of this individual raid I made upon Gallatin I here insert under the head
I tell this incident, not so much to interest the present generation, who have lived so close to it and have heard for themselves from the enactors in the War between the States many and probably more hazardous undertakings than here related, but that the future generation may know the state of affairs that existed in this country about the homes of those soldiers who were driven from them and sought to see their families again after a forced exile of years.
Soon after starting from Atlanta on General Wheeler’s second raid into Middle Tennessee, in 1864, I resolved to go into Gallatin, my home and native place, and see my family, from whom I had been absent for more than two years. I knew that Gallatin had been occupied by the Federal forces a long time, and that the commandants of the place, Payne and then Scarret, had been placed there for their well-known disposition to lord it over a helpless and noncombatant population. Many outrageous crimes had been committed by them, and scores of Confederate soldiers had been brutally murdered for no other reason than that they sought to see their dear ones again. The darkest chapter in our War between the States could be written under this head. I was fully posted then of the hazard of such an undertaking; but I wanted to see my wife and little boy (who was but a few weeks old when I left there), and I fully determined in my own mind to risk it, as I felt convinced that this would be the last opportunity.
When the command reached the Sequatchie Valley, General Wheeler sent the Regiment down to Tracy City to take an unfinished fort that was in course of erection and to be occupied by a garrison. Fearing that we would not return in time to make my anticipated trip home, I went to Lieut. Col. Anderson, my warm-hearted and true friend, and told him how disappointed I was, disclosing to him my well-digested plan to go into Gallatin at night, stay concealed in the house all day, and return the next night, making myself unknown to any I should meet along the way. I reminded him that it might be possible to obtain valuable information for the army. The Colonel did not think my plan feasible, remarking in his nasal way: “Guild, you are certain to be killed or captured.” I told him that I had resolved to make the attempt and believed I could successfully accomplish it. He finally concluded to let me go.