The two wounded soldiers limped along barefoot for about a mile before Grandstaff weakened and decided he could not go on, saying 'he had but one death to die.' Crouse instilled some hope in his friend and they started again, walking in small streambeds to throw off bloodhounds should they be pursued.

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Reaching Piney Creek, they trudged along looking for a spot to cross the rain-swollen stream. They finally selected a place and got over, although Crouse had to rescue his partner after the current swept him off his feet. Grandstaff, now completely exhausted, had trouble ascending the steep bank, so Crouse pushed from behind with his head. They rested a few minutes at the top of the slope, then plodded on through the storm until they reached the Reynoldsburg road, near the spot where they had been captured. After following the road for a while, Grandstaff thought he saw lights and heard noises, but Crouse pooh-poohed his comrade and urged him on.

They had not gone more than 15 feet when three shots rang out so close that some of the powder burned Crouse's face. The two men turned and ran as fast as their bloody feet could carry them. Crouse hurdled a fence, ran down a hill into a field of weeds and burs and hid. After all the noise from a half-hearted pursuit had died away, he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. He was aroused before daylight by a bugle blowing reveille, and he hobbled toward the sound, picking his way carefully since Union pickets would undoubtedly be jumpy in the darkness. He soon encountered a picket, which prompted the following conversation:

'Who comes there?'

'A friend without the countersign.'

'How did you come there?'

'I was captured yesterday by guerrillas and have been shot twice.'

'Where do you belong?'

'Company F, 130th Regiment, Indiana Volunteers, Colonel C.S. Parish, Third Brigade, Third Division, Twenty-third Army Corps.'

'We belong to that. Advance, friend, with your hands up.'

Crouse came forward, but could not get over a fence until someone came to help him. After learning that he and Grandstaff had been fired on by nervous pickets from this very post, Crouse asked the pickets to look for his friend and limped a mile to his regiment's camp. There the surgeon examined him and dressed his wounds, although the physician told Crouse's captain that he would not live more than a few hours. Robert G. Rogers, a relative of the injured man, attended to Crouse, who looked 'more like a dead man than a live one,' he said. He went to a nearby house and got some milk and corn meal, mixed them together into a gruel and fed the desperately wounded soldier.

Meanwhile, grandstaff had gone another direction in the darkness. He dropped to his knees and crawled up a hill where he chanced upon a tree that was hollow at its base. The exhausted soldier curled up inside and went to sleep. He, too, was awakened by the bugle blowing reveille. Waiting until after dawn, Grandstaff walked to the top of a hill and saw the Federal camp, admitting later, 'I assure you I never saw anything before or since that gave me so much joy.' He started for his company, but a teamster told him that the 130th Indiana had already marched off. Grandstaff remained with the wagon train for two days, then stayed with his regiment until it reached Clarksville, Tenn., where he and Crouse were admitted to the hospital ship R.C. Wood, reunited. The two friends remained aboard together until March 1865, when Crouse rejoined his regiment. Grandstaff was discharged the following month after a bout of typhoid fever.

Unknown to either Crouse or Grandstaff, Sergeant Blanchard had also survived the slaughter. The Michigan man explained how he had managed to get away:

I lay there until the next morning. Before daylight I crawled down where William Dewey, Co. D, was and lay there until daylight. With the help of a stick I got up, but hearing someone talking, I lay down on Dewey's arm. Two men came along and searched around for some time. I did not dare to speak for fear they would shoot me and they did not discover that I was alive. The persons proved to be Mr. Hammond and his son. After they had gone, I got out of the ravine and crawled into another, then up a sidehill and into the top of a fallen chestnut tree. I was not hungry, but suffered intensely from thirst. The roof of my mouth became dry and parched from thirst and I was in constant pain from my wounds. While I lay there, I saw several citizens come and bury my companions.

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