Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 05.pdf/114

Rh were selected. With these, under command of Captain Campbell; Mr. Reagan, Postmaster-General, and Colonel William Preston Johnston, Colonel John Taylor Wood (formerly of the Confederate Navy), and Colonel Lubbock, of Texas, AidsAides [sic] to the President, he set off on his journey toward the southwest.

How long or how far they had proceeded, we are unable to state with precision—certainly, however, not more than a day or two—when they learned from some persons met with on the way that Mrs. Davis and her party were in danger of being attacked by some marauding banditti, composed of deserters and stragglers from both armies, who were prowling through the country. [The President's family, it should be understood, had been sent, by his direction, several weeks earlier, from North Carolina southward, and after a delay of some days at Abbeville, South Carolina, had passed through Washington, Georgia, only a day before his own arrival there. They were travelling in ambulances, or wagons, under escort of a few paroled Confederate soldiers. Aiming to reach East Florida, their route diverged from his own, being more to the southward and less to the westward.]

On receipt of this intelligence, Mr. Davis at once changed his course. Four of his small escort had already been detached to assist and protect a quartermaster's train going to the southward with some valuable stores. With the retaining six, and the gentlemen of his personal staff already mentioned, he struck off in the direction of his family, intending to see them safely through the immediate danger and then prosecute his own journey. Riding rapidly and without halting, they came, near midnight, to a ferry, where they learned that his family had not crossed, and must have taken another route. Here Captain Campbell reported the horses of his men to be exhausted, and proposed to wait until morning. The President, unwilling to wait, and attended only by his staff officers and two colored servants, pressed on by a bridle-path to the road which it was thought Mrs. Davis' party had followed. A little before daybreak they encountered a party of men on foot, but with a number of bridles and other suspicious articles, who, on being questioned, said they belonged to the Thirty-sixth Alabama regiment, and stated that a party in which were some women and children were encamped not far off. It was afterwards ascertained that these men were of the band of marauders