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

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[84] had better be done about getting away, as every moment added to his already serious danger. Finally, one of the party suggested that he should go with them anyhow — that the pickets would not be likely to notice that his name was not in the pass, there being so many already on it. In default of any thing better, this proposition was agreed to, and all set out together. Newcomer, however, was still far from easy about the matter, and was fearful that the plan would not work. As they were journeying along, he proposed to the one who had the pass that he should be allowed to write his own name on the pass with a pencil, and if any objection should be made to it they might say that he belonged to the party but did not come in until the pass was made out, and that the provost marshal, to save writing a new one, had inserted the name in pencil-mark. This was assented to and done. The amended pass carried them safely through, and the last cloud of anxiety was lifted from his troubled mind.

Some twelve or fifteen miles having been passed over pleasantly, Newcomer purposely lagged behind and allowed the others to get far ahead, when he turned off and struck across to the Lewisburg and Franklin pike. Travelling on this about ten miles, he stopped for the night, with five of Wheeler's cavalry, at the house of a man who had a son in Forrest's command. Starting the next morning betimes, he reached Ratcliffe's the same evening, but found he had not yet reached home. Stopping a few moments, he passed on through Franklin toward Nashville. He had gone some seven miles, and was near Brentwood, when he saw four cavalrymen riding furiously down a lane just ahead of him. They