CHAPTER XI.
IN WASHINGTON.
Inside the Enemy's Lines. Arrival at the Federal Capital. Renewing an Acquaintance with an old Friend. What I found out by a judicious System of Questioning. The Federal Plans with regard to the Mississippi. An Attack on New Orleans surmised. A Tour around Washington. Visit to the War Department, and Interview with Secretary Cameron and General Wessells. An Introduction to the President. Impressions of Mr. Lincoln. I succeed in finding out a Thing or two at the Post-Office. Sudden Departure from Washington. Return to Leesburg. Departure for Columbus, Kentucky.
CAVING once penetrated the lines of the enemy, there was, I knew, little to fear. As a Confederate soldier, I was figuring in a disguise which was likely, at any time, to get me into trouble of some sort, and not the least danger I saw was that of being arrested as a spy. When I first undertook to be a soldier, this was an idea that never occurred to me; but a very short experience in actual campaigning taught me that I would have to be careful to prevent the fact that I was disguised from being found out, if for no other reason than that my loyalty to the Southern cause might not be suspected. I relied, how ever, upon the good fighting I had done, and the other services I had rendered, which were proofs of the genuineness of my devotion, as well as the influence of my friends to get me out of any scrape into which I might fall through the discovery that I was not a man.
Here, in the enemy's country, however, I passed for exactly what I was, with nobody nearer than Memphis who knew me, both as a man and as a woman, and I consequently felt perfectly secure in moving about pretty much as I chose,
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