L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

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[35] election. Avowing himself a Union man, he was soon obliged to fly; though not until he had recorded himself as against the iniquitous ordinance of Secession. Great numbers of Union men were murdered at this time in Texas, simply for the avowal of Union sentiments; and Pike, desirous of doing his country some service against the bloodthirsty secessionists, escaped from the State into Arkansas; and when he fell in with rebels, represented himself as the nephew of Albert Pike, a rebel general then in the western part of the Indian Territory. More than once he found himself in situations from whence escape seemed impossible; but his ready wit, before long, enabled him to find some way of evading the picket lines of the enemy: and passing through Memphis and Nashville-meeting his father at the latter place-he made his way to Portsmouth, Ohio, by midsummer of 1861; and soon after enlisted, first in Fremont's bodyguard, and subsequently in the Fourth Ohio Cavalry. After spending two months in acquiring a knowledge of cavalry drill, Corporal Pike and the rest of his company were mustered into the U. S. service at Camp Dennison, on the 20th of November, 1861; and early in the spring moved to Louisville, where they were assigned to General O. M. Mitchel's division, and soon marched toward Bowling Green. General Mitchel was too shrewd a judge of character not to discern quickly Pike's qualifications for the secret service; and before he had been under him a week, he sent him, with some twenty comrades, on a scout toward Green River, Ky. On his return, he found General Mitchel's division before Bowling Green, and with another soldier, crossed the Big Barren river on a raft, with a coil of rope, to facilitate the construction