At other times, when assigned to picket duty or reconnaissance in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia, Dodd's objective was not to fight but to avoid capture or detection by the Federals. Even so, he remained in the thick of the action. 'Bushwhackers attacked us, killed my horse, stampeded all,' Dodd reported while on a scout in Allen County, Kentucky. Back in Tennessee, he reported, 'Came up near Epperson Springs, found the Yanks were there and at Scottsville too strong for us.'

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Dodd's undoing came a few months after the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, in September 1863. With Union Major General William S. Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland held at bay inside Chattanooga by General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, and with Union Major General Ambrose Burnside strengthening his hold on Knoxville, the Rangers returned to eastern Tennessee in November to join Major General William T. Martin's cavalry division. Their mission, as part of General James Longstreet's Corps, was to help invest Knoxville and recapture it from Burnside. Although they spent most of their time on picket, shielding Longstreet's infantry and disrupting Union supply lines, they did join in some real fighting near Dandridge and Mossey Creek. One Ranger recalled engaging in a half-dozen skirmishes during November and December.

Dodd missed all this action, for he did not accompany the Rangers immediately to eastern Tennessee. His horse had stumbled and broken a leg during a retreat the previous summer, and he had been unable to find a replacement. He spent the late summer and autumn on detached duty in Georgia, searching for a dependable mount. He finally found one in December, while traveling south of Knoxville with a horse requisition party. He bought it for $200.00. As he and his companions tried to rejoin the army, they found themselves cut off by Federal troops heading north from Chattanooga to relieve Burnside. The Rebels' problems were compounded in mid-December when Longstreet abandoned his siege of Knoxville and withdrew his corps.

The 10-man detail, eager to rejoin the army, tried to dodge the Yankees by taking a circuitous route southeast of Knoxville. They had easy going at first, but things took a nasty turn. Dodd and two other men, named Alexander and Smith, became separated from the main detachment on the rainy night of December 13. The next day Dodd's group encountered a Yankee patrol at Maryville. The outnumbered Rangers ran for it, but Dodd's saddle turned and he lost his horse. Alexander's mount was shot from under him, and Smith, unwilling to abandon his comrades, released his horse. The three men escaped into the woods.

The horseless Rangers finally came to the home of a Mr. McClaine. McClaine had stood by the Union when Tennessee seceded and wanted nothing to do with the desperate Rebels. So the Rangers hid in some timber until dark. The next day they reached the house of Hiram Bogle. Bogle gave them something to eat, but he had taken the Union loyalty oath and did not want to jeopardize his property by helping the fugitives. He did, however, point them in the direction of the home of Timothy Chandler, a Southern sympathizer in Sevier. Traveling by night on December 16, the Rangers passed within sight of some pro-Union home guards patrolling along their route, but they safely reached Chandler's house at 1:00 a.m. on December 17, exhausted and soaked by rain. Like the other citizens, Chandler hesitated to give the men any information that would help them escape, but he did feed them and let them sleep in his barn.

The manhunt ended that day. 'This morning the Home Guards got on our tracks and by the aid of Citizens found us,' Dodd recorded later. The next day a military guard escorted the three men to Knoxville, where the Rangers joined dozens of other Confederate prisoners, mostly Georgians and Texans. Alexander, apparently having had enough of the war, took the loyalty oath and was released.

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