THE LOST DISPATCH.
AN INCIDENT OF THE LATE WAR.
CHAPTER I.
The Union army lay impatiently waiting until the plans of the leader of the Rebel troops could be fathomed. His designs were shrouded in so much mystery that the anxious watchers could not determine whether the invasion of Maryland was only a feint to draw off the Union troops from the points they were protecting, or whether he really aimed to attack the Northern cities.
It seemed absolutely impossible to obtain authentic information. The stories brought in by the stragglers and prisoners were wild and improbable in the extreme. To have believed them would have been to have believed that the enemy had the power of marching in a dozen different directions at one and the same time, for each story gave the enemy a different starting point, and a different aim and purpose to their movements.
Of the scouts who had been sent out to all points, many had been taken prisoner, or had met a speedy death. In spite of their untiring and daring efforts to obtain reliable information, the reports brought back by the few who did return were so unsatisfactory and contradictory that no dependence could be placed in them, for seemingly none of the soldiers and few, if any, of the officers of the invading army knew where they were going or for what.
At the headquarters of General Foster, which that first week of September, '62, were located in an open meadow, half a dozen officers were gathered in a low-voiced consultation. Their faces were grave and marked with lines of anxious thought, as they poured over maps and compared conflicting dispatches. A young officer, Captain Guilfoyle, who sat writing at a table made up of rough boards, joined in the conversation only when questioned by his superior officers, regarding some point in the topography of the country, which could not be determined from the imperfect maps they studied.
An hour later all excepting the young officer had left the tent. Stopping only to light a candle as it grew too dark to see, he wrote steadily on until his work was finished and the papers lay folded on the table. He arranged them ready for inspection, then rose and walked back and forth across the narrow limits of the tent to stretch his tired muscles. At last, with an impatient sigh, he seated himself again and after waiting a moment drew from his pocket a long narrow book. It fell apart, as if accustomed to being opened at one particular page, and the light from the candle shone over a thick, long curl of fair hair, which might have been cut from the head bending over it, so exactly the same was the color. At the sound of approaching footsteps and voices outside the tent he hastily returned the book to his pocket.