With a desire to learn something of the probable advance to Richmond, I had spent considerable time about the Provost-Marshal's Office, where I had become quite well acquainted with a young officer on detached duty.
His interest probably sprung from having seen me in the company of the pretty girl, with whom he desired to become acquainted through me.
On the occasion of one of these visits, I was questioned quite closely by another of the Staff officers about the politics of the Wells family, and especially of the sympathies of the ladies for Confederate officers.
Perhaps I was not in proper frame of mind to dispassionately discuss this question of Geno's family affairs with a strange officer, and it is probable that I somewhat rashly resented the supposed impertinence.
I was informed that it was through the usual gossipy information volunteered, by some unfriendly Unionists of the town, that this officer at headquarters had learned that Captain Wells had been engaged in blockade-running for the Rebels. I exclaimed that I knew better; that my relations with the family were of an intimate character; that Captain Wells was a native of my own State; that all his daughters had been born and educated in the Wyoming Valley, and that he was in Virginia solely and only because his business of steamboating had embargoed him there, and he had chosen to remain himself and sacrifice his boats, rather than abandon his family. All this was said in a positive manner, and with probably a little more animation than the subject justified. It had, however, the undesirable effect of bringing out prominently a trifling affair that occurred in connection with the family, which I must relate, as part of my experience which soon followed, just to show that "trifles light as air, are to the jealous, confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ."
It will be remembered by the old soldiers that, early in the war, it was the custom to display flags promiscuously wherever they could find a place to string one in a Virginia town.
REFUSING IN HER VERY DECIDED MANNER TO WALK UNDER "THAT FLAG."
Soldiers who were in Fredericksburg with McDowell, in 1862, will know that over the main streets of the town hung innumerable flags, so that the natives must either walk under the flag or stay indoors altogether.
Miss Sue Wells, like most bright girls of her age who lived in the South, was fond of tormenting our officers, "just for fun, you know." She insisted, in the company of Union officers, that she was a Rebel, but I was quietly informed by the family that, when the Confederates first had possession of the town, she was a Union girl to them.