The troops stationed at Bolivar, Tennessee, at the time of the evacuation of Grand Junction, were under the command of Brigadier-General L. F. Ross, and my next labors in the secret service of the United States was under his orders and instructions. I made frequent expeditions from Bolivar, but many of them were so similar in the incidents experienced that I shall not undertake to give a narrative of all of them. These expeditions elicited the fact, however, that nearly all of the citizens of that part of Tennessee, in the face of the military occupation of the country, professed loyalty to the Federal Government, and to give their pretensions the color of reality, and secure the privilege to be obtained from the military authorities, took the oath of allegiance.
Every trip that I made in the disguise of a Confederate soldier revealed to me Confederate wolves clad in Union garments. On one occasion, I had been sent for, and was in the act of receiving my instructions from the Adjutant in regard to a trip that I was required to make, when an old gray-headed citizen called in to procure some military favor. The Adjutant, not supposing the little he had yet to communicate to me would give the citizen any clue to the plans I was about to carry out, finished his instructions in his presence. I observed that the old man paid more than usual attention to what was said, and, from the expression of his countenance, I suspected that he comprehended the move that I was about to make. I became so impressed with the idea that the old man meant me evil, that after I had left and the old man had taken his departure, I went back and obtained permission to take a squad of men with me.
I made the trip in the night. My route was on a road that passed the old man's house. I came upon two men by the roadside, evidently watching for somebody to pass. As soon as they discovered that a _squad_ of men, instead of a _single man_, was approaching, they fled without waiting for me to come up. Had the old man succeeded, it would have been my last scout. I ascertained from the colored people on the place that the two men were the old man and his son, and that they were watching to kill a Yankee spy that they expected would pass that night.
