"There wont be any; he is expected back to-night."
Jeff Davis was at Manassas then. I felt really as if I had been derelict in my duty, in thus permitting the President to go out of town without my knowledge and consent. But he was coming back; that was comforting to me. I felt sure now that the rumors of an advance had been confirmed. I knew something was in contemplation, and I should not leave Richmond at that time—certainly not until I had ascertained what it was that they proposed doing, and when it was to be done.
I went straight to my room, wrote a short dispatch—a rather crude one—the translation of which was that:
"Jeff Davis had been to Manassas; something up." And before I slept it was in Colonel J. B. Jones' postoffice.
CHAPTER XVIII.
RICHMOND ON AN AUTUMN MORNING—A GROUP OF GOOD LOOKING SOLDIERS—JEFF DAVIS PASSED BY—THE BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF—RICHMOND NEWSPAPERS.
While I felt that my "dispatch" would ultimately go through to its destination at Washington all right, I was yet quite uneasy about this talked-of advance of the Rebels into Maryland, fearful that it might take place at once, or before my information could reach the North, through the blockade mail service, which was necessarily a little bit slow and uncertain. This fear kept me awake long after I had gotten into bed; and as I lay there alone in my room, in a Richmond hotel, brooding over the dangers of a Rebel invasion into Maryland and the humiliation that would attach to the capture or flight of President Lincoln and his officers from Washington, I became, I expect, somewhat wild and frenzied, and again resolved to myself, while in this disordered and disturbed frame of mind, that I would "stand by Jeff Davis"—for awhile—that for one, he should not go to Washington.
I had been away from home now since July, during which time I had heard only of the Union Army through the Rebel sources, and, of course, everything favorable had been suppressed, while all the weaknesses or shortcomings of our Northern forces had been greatly exaggerated.
I had heard so much of this sort of talk during these three months that I had, perhaps, come to believe in a great deal of it. I was young but not inexperienced.