ere Colonel Barbour was to meet me and deliver the dispatches which he and General Pennington wished to send back to General Foster, so saving me the trip out to get them.

I found the roads so filled with vehicles of all sorts, mingled with cavalry and foot soldiers, as to be almost impassable in any direction, and at places they were completely [Pg 17]obstructed, but by taking side paths I was able to keep my horse at a fair speed.

At four o'clock I was to meet Colonel Barbour at Willard's and in the meantime I had enough to do.

As soon as I reached the city I made my way to a restaurant for a nondescript meal, which might be called either a very late breakfast or an early dinner. From there I went to Willard's, where I took a room and a hot bath. Ever since I had decided to undertake the hazardous enterprise on which I was bent, I had had an intense desire to be off and avoid all delay, and it required more time than I cared to give to remove the traces of my long, hard ride and furbish myself up into a fit condition for calling, but the calls I was to make were the preliminary steps in my hastily constructed plans and too important to be omitted.

The bright sun of the morning was almost obscured by hazy clouds as I started out that warm September afternoon.

[Pg 18]

I sat in four different parlors that afternoon, and my fair Rebel entertainers little dreamed that I, who had "looked them up for old acquaintance sake while I had a few hours' leisure," sat with every nerve strained, only waiting for an opportunity to put the seemingly trivial questions which were to gain me the information so necessary to the successful carrying out of my plans. All direct questions had to be most carefully avoided and it was discouraging to lead up to the subject and then have the