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670 Nort Caronina Troops, 1861-’65.

gap in sight of the enemy and round and through the same
gap several times. While this was going on, General Stone-
man was doing the same thing. Colonel Palmer had his glass
looking on and said he saw one claybank horse come in sight a
half dozen times. When night came on our men went into
Asheville and that night camped where Battery Park Hotel
now stands. About 10 o’clock that night we noticed all the
enemy’s campfires blaze up and in a short time they began to
die down. We said “farewell General Stoneman.” We
moved from there to Hickory Nut Gap, where we met him
again, but only the pickets exchanged a few shots. From
there we went to Broad river and from there to Henderson-
ville, stopped there for the night and as the writer of this
sketch was in ten miles of his home, it appeared to be a good
time to visit it, so he borrowed a horse from a friend and went
home. The enemy’s account of this raid will be found in 103
Official Records Union and Confederate Armies, pp. 31-33.
On 10 March, 1865, the Sixty-second, Sixty-fourth and Six-
ty-ninth were under Colonel Palmer near Asheville and the
three regiments reported a. total of 488 present for duty.

My wife was living off from the Howard’s Gap Road about
one mile, so I spent the night with her and we were up early
before light next morning to take breakfast at my father’s,
who lived on the road. When we came into the road we
found it full of blue coats. What to do I could not tell. To
turn back looked too suspicious, so I decided in my mind to
go on to the house and on I went, my wife by my side, but
just before we reached the house they arrested me. I was
turned over to a guard who was exceedingly kind to me; he
seemed to be sorry for me; he told me I would get a parole
next morning. He put me on an old poor horse and we
started for Hendersonville. I can not express my feelings as
I went up town riding that horse following the Yankee army
to the music of Yankee Doodle. My guard took me to Dr.
T. A. Allen’s and had Mrs. Allen to fix me a good dinner
(which she knows exactly how to do) after which we took the
State road for Asheville, camped that night where the Mills
Gap road leaves the State road. We stopped a while before
night. Colonel Palmer came out from Asheville under a flag

Stxty-FourtaH REGIMENT. 671

of truce and after he returned I heard the soldiers talking
and from what was said they made me believe there would
be no parole for me. I then made up my mind to take care
of myself. They had two of their own men under guard for
some misdemeanor. The man that guarded me all day said to
me that if I preferred, he would keep me with their men and
not put me with the soldiers they had captured that day. I
told him that would just suit me. About 9 o’clock they made
their bed and I retired with my shoes and clothes on. We
were in a lane and they had all the fences on fire. I heard a
conversation with the guard wanting each man to take a pris-
oner and sleep with him, but my gurd said no, so another
guard was put on who took his seat near me and commenced
to play with a negro boy who was asleep; I got up, walked
through the crowd leaning to the dark side of the road and
was soon out of sight without any alarm being raised. I
went on the mountain side and stayed till morning and bid
General Stoneman adieu, went home and so ended my part of
the war. This was a few days after Lee’s surrender, but we
did not know of it. The other scouts all did good service.
Colonel L. M. Allen did some valiant and daring service in
the Hot Springs fight. No braver man ever met a foe.

So the sad end came. Those in prison and out of it—not
dead of disease, frozen, starved or shot—as long as our flag
was afloat, stood by it.

The glorious remnants of the Sixty-second, Sixty-fourth,
Sixty-ninth and Eightieth after the broken truce at  Ashe-
ville, quietly returned to their homes, with and without
guns, feeling honestly, yet sadly, “We have done what we

could.”
B. T. Morris.

Henverson Co., N. C.,
30 May, 1901.