if He the truth-seeing sees me now truth-wresting.”  Now the risk of trifling with such a thunderbolt is not small.  The many noble, excellent, and Christian men, who may have been heedlessly involved in this Rebellion, in spite of past oaths to the nation, it is not our task to judge.  But the act itself, of disregarding such sworn loyalty to their whole country,—­the act in its general principles apart from all personal partakers in it,—­we may and we must ponder.  Now in this respect, if these views of our national oaths be just, our present Rebellion has not been merely treasonable, but its cradle-wrappings, its very swaddling-bands, have been manifold layers of perjury,—­its infancy has been “clad with cursing as with a garment."[*] Can a jealous God consolidate and perpetuate a power commenced in perjury?

[* Rev. W.R.  Williams, D.D.]

After taking the oath, I told the officer that there were from seven to ten thousand Rebel cavalry at Chattanooga, a detachment of whom would surprise him some morning if he was not wide awake.

Having performed this first loyal act under my oath, I went out in search of Selim.  He was not to be found in Murfreesboro, and a further search would have consumed time and thrown me back toward the Rebel lines.  Overjoyed at my escape from the last danger, and not reluctant to make this contribution to the cause of my country, I turned my now buoyant steps homeward, under the protection of the Stars and Stripes.  I rode into Nashville the 28th of June, with feelings widely different from those which crowded my breast when four months before I had ridden out of it in the rear of General Johnson’s retreating army.  I was then, though pleased with the excitement and dash of cavalry service, in a cause where my heart was not, in a retreat from my own friends, and becoming daily more identified in the minds of others with the Rebellion; now I was free from its trammels, with my face toward my long-lost home, with a wish in my heart, which has grown more intense daily, to aid my country in her perilous struggle.

A few hours at Nashville enabled me to see my father’s friend, who had treated me so kindly when sick, and again thank him for his good deeds, and then I left for home.

I will not ask the reader to follow me in my rapid journey through Louisville and Cincinnati, and thence to New York.  Nor need I describe my joyful, tearful, welcome reception by father, mother, sisters, and brother, as of one alive from the dead.

The story of my life in Secessiondom is ended.  If the foregoing pages, beside depicting my personal experience, have given any facts of value to my bleeding country—­facts as to the diabolical barbarism of Southern society in trampling upon all personal rights—­facts showing the intense and resolute earnestness of the whole Southern people in the Rebellion—­facts demonstrating the large resources of the Rebels in arms and men, and the absolute military despotism