The next day found us in Petersburg. Our business here was to provide ourselves with money with which to buy Yankee goods—particularly a Confederate uniform—in Yankeeland. I wanted as much gold as our broker could let me have, but he advised me against taking more than enough to make the trip with, and a small margin for contingencies.
“It will be in your way and increase your danger,” he said. “Confederate notes will get you to the Potomac. From there you need a little gold to take you to Baltimore. After you are there I will contrive any sum you want to your trustees in Norfolk. They, being inside the Yankee lines, can send it to Baltimore.”
Our next objective point was Mrs. Rixey’s in Culpeper. Blockade-runners were continually setting out from there, and we thought we would have no difficulty in attaching ourselves to a party. After a rest in Petersburg of a day and a half, we started for Culpeper, reaching Mrs. Rixey’s at nightfall. We told her husband that we wanted to join a party of blockade-runners.
“Mrs. Otis and her two daughters start north to-morrow; perhaps you can go with them,” he said, and went out to see about it.
Unfortunately—or fortunately—the Otis party was complete—there was no vacant seat in their wagon.
“I will be on the lookout for you,” Mr. Rixey said. “Somebody else will be along soon.”
Before breakfast he knocked at our door.
“There are two gentlemen downstairs who are going north,” he said, when Millie stuck her head out. “They give their names as Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway, and they seem to be gentlemen. That is all I know about them. You might see them and talk the matter over.”
We finished dressing hurriedly and went down to the parlor, where we met Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway, and after a brief talk decided to go with them.
The best vehicle we could get was a wagon without springs, and instead of a body four planks laid across the axles, one plank set up on each side, and no ends at all.