In addition to the regular crowd, there seemed to be a delegation of some kind in an adjoining room, as I judged from the loud talking. The Secretary came out of the room, but, before he could reach his pulpit, he was called back; then, in a few minutes, he again made his appearance in the doorway, talking back to those inside in his usual vigorous style. Feeling desperate, and always impulsive, I made a bold break and handed the Secretary my letter before he reached his desk, being careful to prelude my intrusion by saying: "Senator Cowan directed me to hand you this personally."

With a sharp glance of impatience at me, he took the letter, walked to his desk, and, without opening it, began to deliberately look over his pile of cards. I stood my ground, right in front of him, feeling very much like a guilty school-boy who had been called up by his teacher for punishment.

When Mr. Stanton raised his eyes from the cards and spied me, still standing in front of him, he looked towards me then as if remembering the letter, and said to me: "Where is the note from Senator Cowan?"

"I gave it to you, Mr. Secretary," said I tremblingly.

He looked around, found the envelope, and, while he read it, I felt in my soul that I would rather face Jeff Davis and the whole Rebel Army again than the Secretary of War. I resolved, if I ever got out of that alive, I'd risk anything in the front rather than go back into that room and face the Secretary of War.

When he finished reading the letter, he looked me over earnestly as he folded it up slowly. It will be remembered that this paper referred to me as having been _every place_ in the South; that I had a most valuable experience, etc.

The Secretary astonished me by saying, in the most agreeable and gentle tones, as he looked benevolently through his glasses: "I would like to talk with you, but I'm engaged, and I will have to refer you to the Assistant-Secretary to-day."

I was too scared to make an immediate reply. The Secretary, calling the orderly to him, said to him, as he endorsed something on the bottom of my letter: "Take this gentleman to the Assistant-Secretary."

That was all, but that was enough for me for one day. If there was any one person in all Washington City for whom, or against whom, I entertained an unjust prejudice--I might say, a deep-seated hatred--it was Mr. P. H. Watson, the Assistant-Secretary of War.

I had never met him; in fact, I had never seen him; but the simple fact that he had taken the place of my old friend Colonel Thomas A. Scott in the War Office, since Cameron's removal, was of itself sufficient to turn me against him; but, in addition to this fact, I had gathered from Mr. Covode and the rest of the Pennsylvania delegation, as well as the telegraph boys in the War Department, that Mr. Watson, and his clique of friends, had scandalously maligned Mr. Scott personally and abused Mr.

Cameron politically.

I was ushered into the presence of a large, red-headed, sandy-complexioned man, to whom I was introduced, as the young man Mr.

Secretary had "directed to present to you."

Mr. Watson, at the moment we entered, was busy with some papers. He was surrounded by clerks, occupying other desks in his room, but at once dropped everything to receive us. Upon reading the Senator's letter and the Secretary's endorsement, he at once became very gracious toward me.

And, as he shook hands and drew me to a chair near him, and began some complimentary remarks about my "valuable services," I was not only disappointed at the Secretary in having said not a word about the matter which was uppermost in my mind, but I was also really angry at being handed over to Mr. Watson in a second-handed manner to be pumped by him.

Therefore, I didn't pump worth a cent. I was dry. Mr. Watson made it worse for me by the first question he put. "I presume you are in Mr.

Pinkerton's service." That was adding insult. I resented this insinuation by asserting emphatically: "I am not a detective at all."

The interview did not last long, so there is not much to say about it here; in fact, it ended rather abruptly, when Mr. Watson further suggested that I should put myself in communication with Mr. Pinkerton, who had charge of all these things. I want to make it as plain right here to all who may read this story as I did to Mr. Watson twenty-five years ago, that I reject with scorn and contempt the intimation that I was a detective, working for money. I declined positively to have any communication with the Chief of the Secret Service, and told Mr. Watson, as my friends had all frequently suggested, that I had done important secret-service work for the Secretary of the War Department, _direct_, and I wanted something now wherein I could make available my past experiences.

As I had promised Mr. Covode not to make any engagements with any one, and had fulfilled my agreement to see the Secretary, I retired from the War Office in disappointment and disgust.

I saw Mr. Covode and the other friends, to whom I related my experience with Mr. Stanton and Mr. Watson, and, at the same time, declared my intention to leave the city for the front, and enter the army as a private soldier, and work my way up to position by meritorious service in _front_ of the enemy, instead of in the rear.

The day following, before I could get an opportunity to again see General Stager in regard to his proposal, or take any action myself, Mr.

Covode sent for me. When I reached his room he said, in his blunt way:

"If you are bound to be in the field, I'll give you a letter to General Haupt, who has charge of the railroad between Fredericksburg and Aquia Creek, and he will give you something to do to keep you busy down there till we can get something fixed up here."

I eagerly accepted this proposal; it was not what I wanted exactly, but it admitted of my going to the front, and that, too, in an official position, wherein I could be on hand and, unmolested, see everything that was being done. I had known General Haupt well, as the accomplished Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Mr. Covode had been assured by him, it seems, that he would be delighted to have me in his Military Railroad Service, as I had experience in that direction in Mr.

Scott's service.

We were going to rebuild that road right into Richmond the next week, and I consoled myself with the thought that, if I did not reenter Richmond on a horse as an officer, that I might get there all the same on a locomotive.

I was to be paid a good salary and expenses. All my friends thought it just splendid, and I imagine now, though I didn't think so at the time, that the position was created for me just to prevent my getting into trouble again. In a few days I took a morning steamer, armed with an official pass and a bundle of good clothing, and sailed with the greatest anticipations of quickly seeing Richmond. We reached Aquia Creek in a few hours--this, as all the boys will know, was then the leading place or connecting point between the steamers and the railroads to Richmond. After strolling about there for an hour, I got aboard the first train, which was made up of open truck cars, and we rolled over the ten or twelve miles past the straggling camps of our forces then thereabouts, crossing the high and hastily-improvised trestle of bridges that had been built by "sojers," in the place of those destroyed.

CHAPTER XXV.

GENO--FREDERICKSBURG--A CHAPTER OF WAR HISTORY NOT IN _The Century_ PAPERS.

It will be remembered that, on a previous occasion, I had made an entree into the town of Fredericksburg, on the bare back of an old horse, on the morning in August after the night of horror in which I was pursued by Rebels, suffering from the attack of bloodhounds.

On the occasion of this, my second visit, I rolled over the temporary railroad bridge into the old depot at Fredericksburg on a freight train, dressed--well, in the best store clothes that money would buy at that time in Washington.

I am not sure of the exact date on which I got into Fredericksburg, _en route_ to Richmond; it does not matter much, as I do not pretend to have kept an accurate record of the dates, however, it was along in April or May, judging by my recollection of the weather at that time. McClellan's great Army of the Potomac was on the Peninsula only a few miles from Richmond, while Fitz-John Porter had been up to Hanover Court House, about half way between Fredericksburg and Richmond. General McDowell was in command of quite a large, but, as I recollect it, a widely scattered and very much mixed up force at Fredericksburg.

The problem was to unite McClellan's and McDowell's forces against Richmond. There was just this little gap of some ten or fifteen miles between these two armies, and it was this bit of neutral ground that General Anson Stager, of the United States Military Telegraph Corps, was so desirous of opening communication through, because the "Washington Government" could only hear from McClellan by way of the slow medium of dispatch boats across the bay to the nearest point of telegraph.

I was directed by Mr. Covode to report in person, with a letter to the Chief Engineer, or Superintendent, of the Richmond & Fredericksburg Military Railroad, General Haupt, who was recently the Chief Engineer and builder of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Exactly what was to be the nature of my duties I do not now recall, if, indeed, I ever knew.

I was shown to the Exchange, or may be it was the Planter's; anyway, it was the best hotel, located on the hill, on one of the principal streets leading out toward Marye's Heights. It was not a particularly hospitable place for me, because I saw at once that the young boy, who ran the office for his mother, was only there to collect all the money he could from the "Yankee Invaders," while the father and elder brother were probably in the Rebel camps outside of town, only waiting a favorable opportunity to return and scalp the boarders.

The town was full, literally and spiritually, not only of McDowell's soldiers, who were in camp all around, but of all sorts of strange people in civilians' dress--adventurers, sutlers, traders, whisky smugglers, strange women--in fact, the main street of the quiet, sleepy old aristocratic town was a perfect bedlam in 1862, as compared with my first visit in August, 1861.

That evening, before dark, I saw on the street a greater variety of life than I had met in Washington on any one evening during my stay there.

These numerous hangers-on of the armies had been, to a great degree, excluded from the Peninsula, so they had swarmed up to Fredericksburg as the next best place for them, to be nearest their favorite regiments, and "on the road to Richmond," where they all expected to rejoin McClellan's army in a very few days.

In addition to the great number of officers and men of the army, there were several batches of naval officers from one or two gunboats of the Potomac Flotilla, which had sailed up the Rappahannock and were anchored below town.

Altogether, it was what might be termed a lively town. The ordinary, quiet population had been suddenly increased to 40,000 or 50,000 of McDowell's army and followers, which had settled down around the hills and the streets in one night, like a flock of bluebirds or crows at a roosting place.

During my walk about the town that evening, I ran against a crowd of contrabands on the sidewalk, who were watching with the greatest interest the antics of a pair of New York street arabs, or newsboys, who were dressed up in their rags doing some song-and-dance acts, to the great delight of the country soldiers and assembled contrabands. There was even an attempt at a theatrical performance after early candle-lighting. Indeed it was only after taps that the Provost-Marshal's Guard made any attempt to suppress the fun.

It did not occur to me, until after I had undressed myself and had "doused the glim," while looking out of the window toward the Virginia hill, since so well known as Marye's Heights, that there was any possibility of the Rebels making a sudden dash on the town and capturing us all. I seemed to realize, only when I was alone, that there might be some chance for those Rebel fellows getting in there in sufficient force to gobble us all up.

As I peered through the darkness in the direction of Richmond, I appreciated pretty strongly the fact that I was getting close to the front of that Rebel gang again, and I had not the least desire to get inside their lines as a prisoner. I didn't sleep well, so early next morning I started out to find a place to stay, which did not impress me so strongly as being the house of my enemy.

It was my good luck, or my fate, to have met with a clever gentleman in Mr. Jimmy Wilson, of Middletown, Pennsylvania. He was one of those happy, companionable persons, to whom one naturally attaches one's self to on first acquaintance. His business in Fredericksburg was that of a trader to the army, and he had secured some special privileges in this direction through his townsman, General Simon Cameron, while he was yet Secretary of War.

It may be that Mr. Wilson was attracted to me by something of a selfish motive, through a knowledge of my connection with the railroad in an official capacity, by which he might be able to better facilitate his business interests in the transportation of his "supplies" over the road and evading too close inspections.

In the shrewd manner peculiar to the business of traveling salesmen, he had discovered the very best place in the town to live, to which he kindly consented to introduce me. It was through him that I first met my "fate," in the family of Captain Wells. There were in this happy and accomplished household quite a bevy of young ladies. "All were young, but one was beautiful."

It is quite a long, and I think may be an interesting, story, which is indeed quite too romantic for this narrative of facts. I will only say that Geno, the youngest, was, to my eyes, all that may be described as a beautiful, budding young girl.

The eldest, Miss Sue, had been a belle in Georgetown before the war; another, Miss Mamie, was noted for her sweet disposition. The father, I grieve to add, was suspected by our officers of being a blockade-runner for the Rebels. He had been engaged on the regular underground line between Richmond and Washington, via the Potomac River, since the commencement of the war. Previous to this he had been the owner and captain of a steamer plying on the Rappahannock River. Through this means he had gained valuable information of the river and little bays of that part of Virgina, and knew all about the inlets and outlets of the adjacent water, and was, in consequence of this fact, probably suspected of being a most valuable ally to the Rebel Government. His sympathies were openly with the South, but, as this was the general feeling among the citizens, no one attached importance to the Captain's personal sentiments.

Between my infatuation for Geno and the sense of duty, I had a troublesome old time of it in the weeks and months and years that followed this first evening in the Wells home.

It's pretty much the same old story of love at first sight and trouble forever after. I was politely invited to join the family circle in the parlor after tea. The mother was as youthful in her happy manner as her daughters. The genial Captain permitted himself to be prevailed upon by the younger children to sing one or two comic songs, which were received with hilarious applause. The three daughters vied with the others in their polite efforts to entertain such a dull boy, as I must certainly have become after encountering the apparition of Geno that evening.

Jimmy Wilson's presence seemed to help me out a little. A group played cards, while some one banged the piano and sang "Bonnie Blue Flag,"

"Dixie," and, by way of a tease, "Yankee Doodle." The elder daughter, Miss Sue, was a decidedly beautiful girl, of perhaps twenty, quite lively, and perhaps a little bit of a flirt. I state this opinion generally. I did not entertain it so fully at that time as I did subsequently. Miss Mamie was the good girl of the family, while Geno was the beauty.

If I were not writing this story myself, I should be tempted to honestly declare that Geno was not only the prettiest, but the sweetest, girl I ever saw, and I have seen a great many in my life. She was not tall, but a slender, graceful, womanly figure, dressed in dark blue, she required no artificial aids to her fresh young beauty. Her face was sweetly intelligent, and, while not lacking in resolution, it was marked by that shyness which belongs to young girls who are well-born and bred in comparative seclusion.