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.
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 conversation go over and around the point to which I had been so carefully striving to bring it.
At the end of my second call I was ready to curse the luck which made further effort necessary. During the third call I began to get the desired enlightenment, and at the next house a few freely volunteered remarks rounded my scrappy knowledge. That I did not change countenance, I knew from the face of my entertainer, and she little guessed the joy I felt when she casually told me what I had been striving so hard to find out. My one desire then was to get away, and it required some effort to keep up my part of the conversation. If I had followed the predominant impulse of the moment I would have sped away and "stayed not on the order of my going," instead of drawing my call out to the proper, lingering length.
When I again reached Willard's, I inquired if Colonel Barbour had yet arrived, and learning that he had, I went directly to his room. There were three or four other officers there, all anxious to learn any news I could tell and eager to question, but as I was not personally acquainted with any of them, I cut all conversation as short as I could without actual rudeness, and avoided being detained long. I ordered my horse, and feeling the necessity of eating while I had an opportunity, I went in to dinner.
After a hasty meal I left the hotel. The street was full of moving troops. As I rode slowly along I had to draw up close to the pavement several times to avoid the crush, and several times came to a full halt, until the moving mass of troops, vehicles and pedestrians had surged past. I finally reached the small restaurant on a side street, where, as previously arranged, I met an orderly sent by General Foster. I gave him the dispatches I carried, telling him to proceed at once with them to that General's headquarters. As soon as he was out of the way I was free to follow my own plans.
The streets were comparatively deserted in the direction I took on leaving the restaurant, and I met with no detention. After leaving the city fairly behind me, a sharp three-quarters of an hour's ride brought me to a small, old house standing somewhat back from the road. A decrepit negro took my horse and I went in at a side door opening onto the drive.
It was dark when I left the house again, but even in daylight I do not believe any stranger would have recognized in me, the well gotten up young officer who had entered half an hour before. I had discarded all my accouterments and my uniform, which, notwithstanding the rough usage it had lately been through, still retained much of its new freshness and glitter of brass and gilt. In its place I had on a pair of blue trousers, a gray flannel shirt and a large, soft felt hat, all considerably the worse for wear. I had also changed to a fresh horse. The one I took was not much in the way of looks, but had considerable speed in him, and was not too valuable to abandon to the enemy, as I was well aware I might have to do at any moment.