After we returned with the guns, the army moved on southward. When we were again in motion, as there was no further apprehension of being followed by the enemy, hunger having nearly destroyed my respect for discipline, I left the column by a byroad leading eastwardly, determined to find something to eat. This proved a more difficult errand than I had expected, for the mountaineers were very poor and apparently almost destitute of supplies. I had traveled twelve or fifteen miles when I rode down the mountain into a little valley, at the head of Frog Bayou, coming to a good log house owned and occupied by a Mr. Jones, formerly of Jackson County, Alabama, and a brother of Hosea, Allen, William, and Jesse Jones, good and true men, all of whom I knew. If he had been my uncle I could not have been prouder to find him. Here I got a good square meal for myself and horse, seasoned with a good hearty welcome. This good, true old man was afterwards murdered, as I learned, for his loyalty to the Confederate cause. After enjoying my dinner and a rest, I proceeded on my way, intending to rejoin the command that evening; but, missing the road they were on, I met the regiment at our old winter quarters. Thus about the middle of March the Third Texas Cavalry was again housed in the huts we had erected on the bank of the Arkansas River. I do not know the casualties of the regiment, but as far as I remember Company C had only one man, Jos. Welsh, wounded, and one man, Orderly Sergeant W. M. Caldwell, captured. But as the prisoners were exchanged, our captured men soon returned to us.
Thus ended a short campaign which involved much suffering to me, as well as others, and was the beginning of trouble which nearly cost me my life, a trouble which was not fully recovered from until the following winter. When I was taken with measles in Missouri, the disease affected my bowels, and they became ulcerated, and all through the long spell of typhoid fever and the very slow convalescence this trouble was very hard to control. When I left Rusk to return to the army I was apparently well, but having been comfortably housed all winter was not in proper condition to enter such a campaign at this season of the year. Before leaving winter quarters the men were ordered to prepare ten days’ rations, and when we overtook the command at Fayetteville they had been out nearly that length of time, and rations were already growing scarce. We furloughed men and a number of recruits who had accompanied us to join the command were not here to draw or prepare rations, and our only chance for a living was to share rations with our comrades, who were as liberal and generous as they could be, but they were not able to do much.