midnight
To be messenger of this good news would be bliss ; what prevents it is a blister . '' The crowd laughed boisterously . `` Mister , '' said one of the Kentuckians who accompanied them , with that peculiar drawling inflection of the word that it were hopeless to attempt to represent in print , `` ef ye want ter send some one in yer places me an ' Si heah will be powerful glad ter go . Jes ' git a note ter the Jineral at Wildcat ready while we saddle fresh beasts , an ' we 'll hev hit in his hands afore midnight . '' The proposition was immediately accepted , and in a little while the Kentuckians were speeding their way back to Gen. Schoepf , with a letter giving the news , and signed : `` Kent Edwards , Chief of Scouts . '' That evening a party of young men who had followed the Rebel retreat some distance , brought in a wagon which had been concealed in an out-of-the-way place , and left there . It was loaded mainly with things taken from the houses , and was evidently the private collection of some freebooting subordinate , who did not intend that the Southern Confederacy should be enriched by the property .