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So he wrote on a slip of paper: “Escape as soon after midnight as possible.” He believed that train could be taken with safety. The afternoon of November 27, the weather became dark and stormy. At supper-time Calhoun heard the glad word, “To-night.” As soon as his duties were done he hurried to the home of Mr. Pettis, exchanged his uniform for citizen’s clothes, telling Mr.
I have a full description of him.” General Carrington in turn whispered to a couple of quiet-looking men, dressed in citizen’s clothes who stood near the Governor. They nodded, and started after Calhoun, who was now nearly lost to view in the crowd. Once out of the building Calhoun found that hundreds of spectators had gathered out of curiosity.
He was on his way to see three gentlemen who said they could get him outside of the city without trouble or danger, when an incident happened which came near sending him to the gallows. He was walking unconcernedly along the street, when he suddenly came face to face with Haines, now a captain. Although Calhoun was dressed in citizen’s clothes, the captain knew him at a glance. “A spy!
In this Calhoun proposed to float down to Nashville. Night came dark and cloudy. It was just such a night as Calhoun wished. Clad in a suit of citizen’s clothes, and with muffled oars, he bade his comrades a cheerful good night, and pushed out into the river, and in a moment the darkness had swallowed him up. He floated down as noiselessly as a drifting stick.
“Yes, captured, and by no less a personage than my cousin Fred Shackelford. But for this I would have reached Johnston by the second; as it was, I did not reach Shiloh until the morning of the last day of the battle.” “Then you escaped?” queried Morgan. “No; my cousin let me go, after he had held me until he knew my information would be of no value. I was dressed in citizen’s clothes.
You will find friends in Columbus, many of them, who will be delighted to meet you.” When Columbus was reached, Calhoun, on advice of Mr. Pettis, bought a suit of citizen’s clothes, for, said he, “We Knights hate the sight of that uniform; it’s the badge of tyranny.” Calhoun saw that he had found a friend indeed in Mr. Pettis.
I was, you know, that year, the Citizen’s Anti-Graft leader in the 50th Ward.... I am, still, if I live; and if I ever can get anything into my head except the stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic problems depending upon its outcome.... Well, it was odd to remember that petty political conflict as I stood there in the trenches under the gigantic shadow of world-wide disaster to find myself there, talking with this sallow, wiry, shifty ward leader this corrupt little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the 50th Ward this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman this dirty little political procurer who had been and was everything brutal, stealthy, and corrupt.
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