CHAPTER IX.
REPORTING TO GENERAL BANKS' HEADQUARTERS FOR DUTY—THE LIFE OF JEFF DAVIS THREATENED—CAPTURED AT HARPER'S FERRY—INTERESTING PERSONAL LETTERS CORROBORATING THE SUPPOSED DEATH OF THE "BOY SPY."
The Sunday of July, 1861 (21st), on which the first battle of Bull Run was being fought, found me quietly recruiting from the tiresome adventure in Virginia in the quiet little hamlet of Pennsylvania, in which I was born, situated at the foot of the Cove Mountain, almost within hearing of the cannon.
I had gathered from General Porter's manner as well as from his words, while talking to me only a day previous, that a battle was not imminent, and this opinion was seemingly confirmed by my own observations both in the Rebel country and while coming through General Patterson's army. There were, to my mind, no signs of a movement among our forces; the two armies were too far apart to be quarrelsome; our headquarters presented an appearance of satisfied security.
In our obscure village there were no telegraphs in those days, the mail facilities being limited to a daily trip of the relic or remnant of the old Bedford stage-coach, which rambled into town on the Monday evening following, and brought us the first intelligence of a battle—and a defeat which was being magnified every mile the old stage traveled into a terrible disaster.
This startling news spread about the village like wild-fire, reached me at the tea-table, and, to my untrained, impulsive disposition, had pretty much such an effect as the lighting the fuse of a sky-rocket. I went off like a sky-rocket—disappeared in the darkness that night, lost to the sight of my friends for months. The rocket hovered over the rebel hosts so long that I was almost forgotten in the excitement of the time. I came back as suddenly as I had left, like the stick from the rocket that drops down from above.
It is the purpose to tell in this chapter, for the first time, the secret story of those months in Rebeldom, which has remained a mystery even to my family for twenty-five years. I had never intended to print these experiences, but hoped that I might find time, when I should grow older, to prepare for my children only, a memorandum of the trip.
An hour after the receipt of the news, I was en route for the nearest railroad station, at Chambersburg, my first impression being that, as the rebels were victorious, they would, as a matter of course, move right on to Washington City and drive the Union officials off.
Entertaining this feeling, my first impulse was to get somewhere in their rear. I felt in my heart that something must be done to prevent Beauregard and Jeff Davis from driving us all out of the country, and I was frenzied enough at that time, by the excitement that was everywhere prevailing—overcoming the reason and judgment of the most conservative as well as the mercurial temperament—that, if an opportunity had presented itself, I might have been foolish enough to have attempted an assassination of Jeff Davis, sincerely believing, in my youthful enthusiasm and indiscretion, that such an act would serve to defeat their plans. That I entertained seriously and determinedly such a chimerical scheme will probably be surprising to those of my acquaintances now, but the confession will serve in a manner to explain some of my movements, which, at the time, puzzled even my best friends, who generously accounted for my queer actions by the indulgent—if not complimentary—reflection that I was a "reckless and adventuresome boy."