The incident served to break up the singing services, and after that we heard less of England. It also shows that, even among the United States Rebel prisoners in the Old Capitol Prison, in 1862, there was a smoldering or banked-up fire of genuine patriotism yet burning, that only needed a little stirring or poking up, to cause it to break out into a great flame.
I will not burden this narrative with this Englishman's story. His history, and especially his secret services for the Rebellion, as he related it every day in the three weeks that I was obliged to listen to his everlasting talk, would, to use a common term, fill a book.
He was evidently enamored of Miss Boyd, and the plans of these two Rebel Spies, after they should be released, were from day to day discussed in my hearing.
Belle Boyd's operations as a Spy, had been carried on principally in the Valley, where I was not at all known. During our many hours of confidential chat together, I learned from her, under pretense of expecting to use the information in getting South, when I should "escape," the names and location of those people along the Upper Potomac and in Washington, who could be depended upon as "our friends," or as we called them in those days, "Rebel sympathizers."
The list was extensive, and embraced some Washington "officials."
If my services had not resulted in anything else, this information alone, which I gained as an involuntary Spy, was of sufficient importance to compensate for all my troubles. Of course, it will be understood here that Belle Boyd never once suspected my true character. She had heard me denounced by the officials of the prison as a "dangerous man." Indeed, without egotism, I may be allowed to say that, at that particular time, I was looked upon by the prisoners and attendants as a "remarkable character," to put it modestly.
I did not suspect at this time that I was the object of so much quiet Rebel homage and attention, else I might have conducted myself differently, and exhibited some vanity over the reputation I then enjoyed. As it was, I was set down as one of the quietest, least troublesome of all Colonel Woods' guests. That was my Old Capitol Prison record in brief; and I don't know now whether I should boast of it or not. Probably I do not deserve any credit at all for the simple facts were, that I was so sick at heart, and yet so stubborn in disposition, that I had neither inclination or desire to speak a word to anybody, and wanted to be let alone.
My brother called to see me the second day after my arrival, accompanied by some officious fellow from General Eckert's War Department Office, whose name I have forgotten.
When Colonel Woods personally called me down to his office, he said, in a kindly way, that my brother and a friend had called, and that, out of respect for us all, he would permit us to have a quiet interview, without any show of guards or the usual censorship of official attendants. I thought at the time that this was very kind in Colonel Woods, but I changed my mind after the interview had ended.
As I walked into the room, my brother stepped up to shake my hand, but the poor fellow broke down completely and could not utter a word. His exhibition of feeling surprised and, of course, affected me, and for the moment I more fully realized the effect that imprisonment was even then having on my father and friends in the world outside. With this came a reaction in an intense bitterness, engendered by the knowledge that I was being at least outrageously treated, so that I became in a moment, even in the presence of my heart-broken brother, as cold and apparently as indifferent as the worst Rebel inside. It will be seen that this unjustifiable imprisonment had changed my whole nature for the time being. It had soured me, as it were, with the War Department Administration (but not with the country), as completely as a thunderstorm would have turned a glass of sweet cream into a cold thick mass of clabber.