intention of becoming an employee of his. This, I thought, was a matter I had best keep to myself for the present, for fear of accident.
These agents were exceedingly glad to see me, and had several jobs of work cut out which they were anxious that I should attend to. They did not strike me as being very important, but I thought that they would do to begin with, and that they would aid me in becoming acquainted with the Confederate working force in the North. I, therefore, promised to give them my aid so soon as my brother should leave for the South.
They then evinced a great eagerness to have me persuade my brother to carry some despatches through; but I said that it would be useless to ask him, and that the most I could expect of him was, that he would take a verbal message from myself to the officials who knew me in Richmond, to the effect that I was at the North, endeavoring to aid the Confederate cause by every means in my power, and filled with zeal to do whatever was to be done. It required considerable persuasion to induce my brother to do even this much, but finally, to my great satisfaction, he consented. {{cSecret Service Operations.}} Shortly after this my brother went South on a cartel of exchange, and in due time I received information that my message had been delivered, and that I was recognized as a Confederate secret service agent.
In the mean while I made a large number of acquaintances among the adherents of both the Federal and Confederate governments, and did a great deal of work of one kind or another. None of my performances, however, for several months were of sufficient importance to warrant special mention in these pages, and their chief value to me was, that they kept me employed, and taught me what kind of work there was to do, and how to do it. During this time I visited Washington frequently, and always made it a point to see Colonel Baker, to whom I furnished a number of bits of information, the majority of which were of no particular value to him, although several were of real importance, and aided him materially in his effort to break up certain fraudulent practices, and to bring the rogues to justice.
