Belle Boyd was as much interested in my outfit as any school-girl is over the dressing up of her new doll, while the Englishman gave me enough instructions and orders to carry me around the world. He was certainly an adept in the business.
During my three weeks at the Old Capitol Prison, I made a number of peculiar acquaintances that were quite interesting in the year which followed. As I am only to furnish that which pertains to myself personally, I will omit the mention of any other except to record my first acquaintance with a most universally-known war character.
The party to whom I refer will be recognized by every soldier, I may say without a single exception, in all the armies. I regret very much that I can not give his name in Latin, but in war talk it was the "Greyback," or, in plain United States—lice.
These detestable things were in Old Capitol as thick as they only can be, and, after my first contact, I may say frankly, they stuck to me closer than a brother "for three years or during the war." This was one of the "things" that "animated" me to get out of that dirty old building, that I might rush down to the Potomac and drown myself.
Old Capitol is now a beautiful block of fine residences, containing, to-day, probably as fine and as luxurious furniture and occupied by as refined people as are in the country, but, personally, I wouldn't live in it for anything, because I feel sure the bugs are in the walls yet.
The plan I proposed was entirely feasible; we all agreed on that; not one of us doubted but that I would be able to successfully accomplish the dangerous undertaking. It was dangerous only if I should be detected in the attempt, as it would certainly end in my being sent off to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor, where I would probably be ironed and placed in a dungeon as a dangerous character, and be kept there, too, during the war. It never once occurred to me that to have been caught in attempting to escape, or to have succeeded in doing so, would have reacted against me disastrously, to the satisfaction of those who were so anxious that I should afford them some proof by which they might be able to more fully substantiate the charges of supposed disloyalty, that they had whispered into the ear of the Secretary of War. It was quite an easy matter in those days for the suckers, like Woods, Eckert, and the gang of Pinkerton suckers, and others, who were around the War Department, to poison the mind of the powers that were against any persons they may have selected as a target for their contemptible and cowardly persecution. It's a true story, well known among historians, that this was being done—in many cases where the victims were often men of great prominence and rank, that subsequent events proved to have been as loyal as the Secretary himself.
The Englishman's story, that I gathered from his continual gabble, would make a chapter in itself. I will only mention now that he was apparently in the service of at least some official of great prominence in the English Government. He told us of letters of introduction he brought to President Jefferson Davis and a number of the leading officers of the Rebel Government at Richmond; from ever so many "my lords" of high degree in England.
It was while endeavoring to reach Richmond through the Potomac blockade that he was captured, and, to his great disgust, all of his papers were "seized," as he said, "by some brutal soldiers, you know," and the vulgar officers absolutely declined to return his papers, and had actually been so preposterous as to send him under guard to "a vile prison."
That's about the style of his everlasting chin—from morning until night—and the fact that his accent, as well as his foreign airs of superiority and of contempt for the Yankees, necessarily accompanied the words, made him all the more disagreeable to me.
The most interesting part of his story is, as he in an unguarded moment, apparently, while talking with Miss Boyd, who had expressed a curiosity to know why he did not attempt to escape, too, confessed that the real object and purpose of his mission in this country, as he had been instructed before leaving England by his friend, was to purposely place himself in the way of arrest and imprisonment by the United States Government.