to my interest to volunteer, adding, substantially, as follows:  “Several members of the committee think if you do not see fit to follow this advice, you will probably stretch hemp instead of leaving Memphis; as they can not be responsible for the acts of an infuriate mob, who may hear that you came from the North.”  I was allowed no time for reflection, as the policeman stood waiting, he said, “to show me the way.”  I now saw at a glance, that the military power of the city had resolved to compel me to volunteer, and in my friendlessness I could think of no way to escape the cruel and dread necessity.

Still the hope remained that perhaps I might make a partial promise, and ask time, and yet elude the vigilance of the authorities.  As the M.P. grew impatient, and at length imperious, showing that he well knew that he had me in his power, I walked on to avoid the crowd which was beginning to gather, and soon reached the recruiting station.  I saw, the moment I was inside, that the only door was guarded by bayonets, crossed in the hands of determined men.  The Blue Jacket, in a private conversation with the recruiting officer, soon gave him my status; when, turning to me, the officer said, with the air of a man who expects to carry his point, “Well, young man, I learn you have come to volunteer; glad to see you—­good company,” &c.

To which I replied, “I was advised to call and look at the matter, and will take some time to consider, if you please.”

“No need of time, sir—­no time to be lost; here is the roll—­enter your name, put on the uniform, and then you can pass out,” with a glance of his eye at the policeman and the crossed bayonets, which meant plainly enough, “You do not go out before.”

To my suggestion that I had a horse on the boat which I must see about, he replied very promptly, “That could all be done when this business was through.”

The meshes of their cursed net were around me, and there was no release; and with as good a grace as I could assume, I wrote my name, and thus I volunteered!

Does any reader say, “You did wrong—­you had better have died than have given your name to such an infamous and causeless rebellion?” I can only answer:  It is far easier to say what a homeless youth, hunted for his life for two nights and a day, until exhausted, faint, and friendless, in the midst of an excited and armed populace, should do, than it was in the circumstances to do what will stand the test of a high, calm, and safe patriotism.  Let none condemn until he can lay his hand upon his heart and say, “No conceivable pressure could overcome me.”

CHAPTER II.

INFANTRY SERVICE.