I had made up my mind, while in the Old Capitol Prison, that when I should get free again the very first thing I should do would be to enlist as a private soldier in the Union Army.
I reasoned to myself that my services as a Scout or Spy, while working as a civilian in the interest of the politicians at Washington, would not advance my military ambition. In fact, I had learned from some hard hits already that it was an uphill business to operate in the field as a civilian. Somehow or other, all the military people were not exactly distrustful, but there seemed to be at least a prejudice against any person about the camp who did not wear a uniform. I was willing and anxious enough to wear a uniform, but my ambition was to be an officer in the Regular Service, attached to Headquarters Staff.
This, as I have said, was about as difficult to reach as the position of Brigadier-General in the Volunteers, because they were making Brigadier-Generals every day, and they were not making Second Lieutenants in the Regular Army.
I explained my plans to my father and a few friends. My father interposed some objections to my selection of the Regular Army, preferring that I should identify myself with some regiment from our own State, and especially from our own neighborhood.
I preferred the Regular Cavalry first, because I intended fitting myself, by the experience I should gain in the ranks under the severe discipline and drill, for a Second Lieutenancy in that branch. My father thought that I would not be able to stand the restraints the discipline would impose upon me; but, as usual, I had my own way, overcoming their preference for the State troops, by the reminder that the treatment I had received from the Secretary of War would serve as a club in the hands of malcontents and growlers, who are to be found in every regiment, kicking against new-comers' advancement.
Another difficulty was raised by the receipt of a letter from my brother, at Washington, which reminded my father that I was not allowed to remain at my home, because it was located south of the line of my stipulated parole.
The War Department detectives had tracked me even into my own home, through the connivance of some contemptible neighbors, who are descendants of the Revolutionary Hessians, and like the craven dogs they were, they helped to hound me away from my father's home. To relieve my father and friends of any embarrassment, I left the house, after bidding them another "Good-by," one evening, arriving in Pittsburgh before midnight of the same day. The first thing the next morning I hunted up the recruiting office, astonished the officers by offering myself, and without any preliminaries enlisted into Company B, Second United States Cavalry, Captain T. F. Rodenbaugh.
When I applied for enlistment I never once thought of the bounty money I would become entitled to, therefore my entry into the army in the fall of 1862 was in no sense mercenary. I had served a year previously as a civilian and knew what was in store for me in the ranks.
I was not even "in the draft," as my parole would have relieved me from every obligation, if I had chosen so to use it. I volunteered from motives of duty and patriotism in 1862, at a time when recruiting was not so brisk as it had been; in fact, at a time when everything looked dark enough for our side.
Instead of availing myself of the parole that cleared me from obligation, I, in the darkest days of the war voluntarily enlisted as a private soldier. I felt in my heart that, in thus putting my life in pawn for the cause I had from the first consistently championed, that I would forever put beyond discussion the question of the sincerity of my motives, and I became credited to Alleghany County, Pennsylvania, so that, after all, I was a "regular volunteer" from my own State and County.