I accepted the proposition without a moment's thought about the probable difficulties that were to be met with in carrying out the undertaking, and I had been over that country in Virginia and was familiar with it. I was anxious to do anything that would give me an opportunity for active service.
My brother interposed some objections, which General Stager thoughtfully considered, and, after admonishing me of the danger in my case, he again proffered service in the telegraph department. It was arranged between us that I should call again on the following day; meantime he would consult with some of the officers and ascertain their wishes in regard to the matter.
General Eckert, who was in the room, had overheard part of my story—he had not been consulted at all by General Stager—to my mind, showed in his manner some little resentment toward me, probably because of the interest that General Stager had seemingly taken in my affairs.
He felt impelled to make some remark, intended to be jocular, about a Rebel uniform being in the War Department. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, and probably would not have observed the circumstance had not several others, who were present, made it a subject of conversation among themselves at our dinner-table that day.
In leaving the War Department Building that day, I walked out by the basement or east door, nearest the White House, intending to take the short cut, through the White House grounds, to our boarding-house on F street.
Just as I passed out of the door my quick eye detected President Lincoln coming up the few stone steps into the doorway; as he slowly walked or shuffled along, he was apparently reading the contents of a paper, which he held before his eyes with both hands. I had seen Mr. Lincoln inaugurated, and frequently since. I recognized him at a glance, and to get a closer look, I respectfully stood to one side of the steps to let him pass. A gentleman was walking alongside of the President, and as the two passed the President became crowded quite close to me, and actually touched or rubbed against my Rebel uniform. Mr. Lincoln apparently did not see me; he was too deeply immersed in reading, or trying to read, the letter he held in his hand as he walked, while the gentlemen with him was gabbling in his ear in a very earnest manner.
So it happened, as I had predicted, when my home friends had shown their opposition to my wearing the gray, that I saw Mr. Lincoln while dressed in my Rebel uniform. I had shaken hands with "the other President"—Jeff Davis—in Richmond, only a short time previously, while attired in the same court dress.
This "interview" wasn't exactly as satisfactory to me as it might have been, if I had been presented by the delegation that had called with me a few days sooner. But I had "seen the President," and, as there had been such a great opportunity presented for some further secret service in my line, I didn't care very much just then whether I should again get the crowd together for another call or not.
That evening I saw Mr. Covode, to whom I related my interview with General Stager, telling him of the plan upon which I had agreed to make the trip to Richmond again. The old man put on his specks, looked over the top of them at me in a curious sort of way, and said, rather savagely: "You beat hell, you do." Then in a more moderate tone he protested earnestly against it, saying: "You mustn't let everybody make use of you that way."
When I explained that I was only desirous of getting out of Washington, and anxious to be on hand in the field when Richmond was taken, and intimated further that Mr. Stanton and the President would give me the commission on sight if I should come in first with some good news, he remonstrated earnestly: "Oh, yes; you go down there again in that shape, and you wont need any commission; they will hang you, sure, to the first tree."