Had I been so disposed, it would have been a simple matter to have concocted much mischief, with the aid of information I had obtained in the Old Capitol of Rebel sympathizers who were living in the city. Miss Boyd had given me the names and addresses of pretty nearly everybody she had known as a friend of the South; but I made no use of this myself, except to give the information in writing to Covode's committee.
At our camp, near Fort Albany, we were quartered in the regulation Sibley tent, which all old soldiers will recognize without further description. As the company clerk, or private secretary of our Captain, I was pleasantly provided for in the First Sergeant's tent. There were but the two of us in the big concern, because we had to make room for the desks or writing-table and other storage for the company papers.
It is a little curious that I was selected to do precisely this same duty by the Rebels in their capital.
Through the good management of the Captain and the First Sergeant, who were, of course, my friends, and looked after my interests in the company while I was busy on the papers, I was supplied with a real beauty of a horse. He was one of the black Morgan type, a little small, but oh, my! I suspect that the Captain became personally solicitous about my being handsomely mounted, as I found myself detailed to act as an Orderly to himself and the other officers almost every time they rode into the city.
My little nag was what may be termed frisky and spirited. I am talking all this horse now, because in the days and weeks and months that immediately followed "Frisky" took an important part in all the adventures that I had. From this time forth most of my experiences were somewhat of a dashing character, dressed, as I was, in a neat uniform, and well mounted on a horse. One little trick of Frisky's will serve to illustrate better than I could describe in many words the nature of the animal.
The stable, in the field, you know, was simply a parallelogram composed of ropes tied to posts driven in the ground. Inside of this the horses were tied to the ropes. At every stable-call I usually went out to attend to my own horse, so as to get a chance to ride bareback to water. At a certain signal, all hands mounted their horses, and at the command all filed out of the ropes, under the leader, toward the water. Frisky, being well to the rear of the column the first time I got on him, astonished me and surprised the officer in command by suddenly jumping at a clear leap over the top of the rope and running off toward the head of the line. So that, at every water-call, it got to be a regular show for the officers to come around to Frisky's side of the corral to see him jump over the rope instead of marching around in the rear of the others.
I was at least as good a horseman as any of the rest of our batch of recruits, and probably my experience in Texas, supplemented by the lessons at Carlisle, had made me quite proficient in the regulation style of marching my horse.
We frequently rode over to Washington to spend an evening. I had lots of fun, but no adventures that I care to put in print. Nearly every Sunday a couple of us would get permission and passes and ride up to what was then called the Arlington House, and thence through the lines of heavy artillery sentries about the fortifications, over the Aqueduct Bridge, to Georgetown and Washington.
At last we were ordered to the front. I do not now remember the exact date, but it was sometime in December.
This is engrafted on my memory by the fact that the "front"—as the history of the war shows—was then at or near Fredericksburg, the same grand old historic town, so dear to my memory, from which I have been escorted a prisoner to the Old Capitol only a couple of months before.