The Rebel Captain, noticing me, said, in the old, hateful, brutal, imperious tone: "Git back in dat cah, dah." An hour before I would have scrambled back as quickly as possible, knowing that an instant's hesitation would be followed by a bullet.
Now, I looked him in the face, and said as irritatingly as possible: "O, you go to -- --, you Rebel.

I'm going into Uncle Sam's lines with as little Rebel filth on me as possible." He passed me without replying.
His day of shooting was past.
Descending from the cars, we passed through the guards into our lines, a Rebel and a Union clerk checking us off as we passed.

By the time it was dark we were all under our flag again.
The place where we came through was several miles west of Wilmington, where the railroad crossed a branch of the Cape Fear River.

The point was held by a brigade of Schofield's army--the Twenty-Third Army Corps.
The boys lavished unstinted kindness upon us.

All of the brigade off duty crowded around, offering us blankets, shirts shoes, pantaloons and other articles of clothing and similar things that we were obviously in the greatest need of.