Then we had a long, confidential talk in whispers, as it were, over the long wire, in which much that I have tried to relate in these pages was briefly gone over, while I was, in turn, informed of all that had been done and said during my absence.
Word was sent to my father and to my sweethearts and all my friends. As I rose to leave the office, and turned to thank my old fraternal companion for his kindness and courtesy, in giving me this opportunity to at once converse with my home, he suggested to me that, as I had been so grossly misrepresented, I ought to see the New York papers and have my story properly given to the world.
At his request, I agreed to meet him at the office in the evening, when he would take me to the different offices of newspapers with which he, as manager of the Associated Press, had friendly relations, and introduce me to the editors.
Leaving Mr. Porter, I found my way next to Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Church, in Brooklyn, as being one of the necessary things to do in New York on a Sunday morning. Here I got a back seat, in a crowded gallery, and, as I had not yet gotten over the tumbling and rolling sensations experienced aboard our old tub of a ship, as I sat there and tried to ogle the pretty girls in the choir over Mr. Beecher's pulpit, the whole church persisted in rocking and rolling, precisely as the ship had been doing for a week.
The rest of the day I put in sending notes and messages to Washington, and to friends whom I had left at home, but many of whom, I now learned, were out in the army, at different points.
In the evening, I met my friend according to appointment, and together we called at the New York Herald office, where I was pleasantly welcomed as a "fruitful subject," and the shrewd city editor pumped me thoroughly dry before he let me out of that chair by his desk.
From there we went to the New York Tribune, where the same procedure was gone through but at somewhat greater length. The next morning, which, if I remember rightly, was May 28th, 1861, these two New York papers printed with bold head-lines a full account of my recent adventure.
The Tribune, I think, published one of their war maps, in which was located the different Rebel batteries, but in such a mixed-up way that I was unable to understand it myself.
However, it satisfied the people, and for a single day I was a greater hero in New York than Lieutenant Slemmer.
Luckily for me, perhaps, I was anxious to get back home to see my number one girl, and got out of the city before I could be wholly spoiled.