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Rejoining Hommat, we held a consultation and decided to stay where we were until it became darker, before trying to get out. It was the night of the 22d of December, and very cold for that country. The camp guard had small fires built, which we could see quite plainly. After starting we saw that the pickets also had fires, and that we were between the two lines.
The excitement being over, Hommat began to move very slowly again. His feet and legs were so swollen that he could scarcely walk, and it took us a long while to pass over those eight miles. At last we came in sight of our pickets. They were negros. They halted us, and Hommat went forward to speak to them.
The excitement being over, Hommat began to move very slowly again. His feet and legs were so swollen that he could scarcely walk, and it took us a long while to pass over those eight miles. At last we came in sight of our pickets. They were negros. They halted us, and Hommat went forward to speak to them.
We stopped over one day with them, to rest, and two of them concluded to go with us. We were furnished with a lot of cooked provisions, and starting one night made forty-two miles before morning. We kept the negros in advance. I told Hommat that it was a poor command that could not afford an advance guard. After traveling two nights with the negros, we came near Baldwin.
The shoes that had been given him by the widow lady were worn out, and his feet were much torn and cut by the terribly rough road we had traveled through swamps, etc. We sat down on a log, and I, pulling off the remains of my army shirt, tore it into pieces, and Hommat wrapped his feet up in them. A part I reserved and tore into strips, to tie up the rents in our pantaloons.
Dear Comrade Mc.: ..................... I have been living in this town for ten years, running a general store, under the firm name of Hartsough & Martin, and have been more successful than I anticipated. I made my escape from Thomasville, Ga., Dec. 7, 1864, by running the guards, in company with Frank Hommat, of Company M, and a man by the name of Clipson, of the Twenty-First Illinois Infantry.
As we at length came out, Hommat turned to me and whispered that in the morning we would have some Lincoln coffee. He seemed to think this must certainly end our troubles. We were now between the Jacksonville Railroad and the St. John's River. We kept about four miles from the railroad, for fear of running into the Rebel outposts.
We had traveled but a few miles when Hommat said he could go no farther, as his feet and legs were so swelled and numb that he could not tell when he set them upon the ground. I had some matches that a negro had given me, and gathering together a few pine knots we made a fire the first that we had lighted on the trip and laid down with it between us.
Hommat being barefooted, she pulled off her own shoes and stockings and gave them to him, saying that she would go to Town the next day and get herself another pair. She told us not to try to cross the river near Columbus, as their troops had been deserting in great numbers, and the river was closely picketed to catch the runaways.
This discovery saved us from capture, and keeping about an equal distance between the two, we undertook to work our way out. We first crossed a line of breastworks, then in succession the Fernandina Railroad, the Jacksonville Railroad, and pike, moving all the time nearly parallel with the picket line. Here we had to halt. Hommat was suffering greatly with his feet.
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