He looked around, found the envelope, and, while he read it, I felt in my soul that I would rather face Jeff Davis and the whole Rebel Army again than the Secretary of War. I resolved, if I ever got out of that alive, I'd risk anything in the front rather than go back into that room and face the Secretary of War.
When he finished reading the letter, he looked me over earnestly as he folded it up slowly. It will be remembered that this paper referred to me as having been every place in the South; that I had a most valuable experience, etc.
The Secretary astonished me by saying, in the most agreeable and gentle tones, as he looked benevolently through his glasses: "I would like to talk with you, but I'm engaged, and I will have to refer you to the Assistant-Secretary to-day."
I was too scared to make an immediate reply. The Secretary, calling the orderly to him, said to him, as he endorsed something on the bottom of my letter: "Take this gentleman to the Assistant-Secretary."
That was all, but that was enough for me for one day. If there was any one person in all Washington City for whom, or against whom, I entertained an unjust prejudice—I might say, a deep-seated hatred—it was Mr. P. H. Watson, the Assistant-Secretary of War.
I had never met him; in fact, I had never seen him; but the simple fact that he had taken the place of my old friend Colonel Thomas A. Scott in the War Office, since Cameron's removal, was of itself sufficient to turn me against him; but, in addition to this fact, I had gathered from Mr. Covode and the rest of the Pennsylvania delegation, as well as the telegraph boys in the War Department, that Mr. Watson, and his clique of friends, had scandalously maligned Mr. Scott personally and abused Mr. Cameron politically.
I was ushered into the presence of a large, red-headed, sandy-complexioned man, to whom I was introduced, as the young man Mr. Secretary had "directed to present to you."
Mr. Watson, at the moment we entered, was busy with some papers. He was surrounded by clerks, occupying other desks in his room, but at once dropped everything to receive us. Upon reading the Senator's letter and the Secretary's endorsement, he at once became very gracious toward me. And, as he shook hands and drew me to a chair near him, and began some complimentary remarks about my "valuable services," I was not only disappointed at the Secretary in having said not a word about the matter which was uppermost in my mind, but I was also really angry at being handed over to Mr. Watson in a second-handed manner to be pumped by him. Therefore, I didn't pump worth a cent. I was dry. Mr. Watson made it worse for me by the first question he put. "I presume you are in Mr. Pinkerton's service." That was adding insult. I resented this insinuation by asserting emphatically: "I am not a detective at all."
The interview did not last long, so there is not much to say about it here; in fact, it ended rather abruptly, when Mr. Watson further suggested that I should put myself in communication with Mr. Pinkerton, who had charge of all these things. I want to make it as plain right here to all who may read this story as I did to Mr. Watson twenty-five years ago, that I reject with scorn and contempt the intimation that I was a detective, working for money. I declined positively to have any communication with the Chief of the Secret Service, and told Mr. Watson, as my friends had all frequently suggested, that I had done important secret-service work for the Secretary of the War Department, direct, and I wanted something now wherein I could make available my past experiences.
As I had promised Mr. Covode not to make any engagements with any one, and had fulfilled my agreement to see the Secretary, I retired from the War Office in disappointment and disgust.