correspondence very regularly with their friends of the out side world.
My brief experience had convinced me that I had peculiar talents for the kind of work in which I had been engaged since the advent of Butler and his forces in New Orleans, and my only regret was, that I had not made a persistent effort to take it up sooner. I determined now, however, to qualify myself as quickly as possible for the business of a spy and a bearer of despatches, for I felt assured that there would be plenty of employment found for me before the war was over, and that if I proved myself skilful and reliable, the Confederate authorities would avail themselves of my services with an alacrity they had not shown when I was skirmishing around in the character of a little dandy independent lieutenant, seeking to have a hand in every fight.
A Discouraging Outlook.
The military situation in some of its aspects was gloomy enough. In the West we had occasional successes, but their permanent value was little or nothing, while the enemy was steadily advancing and making the beleaguerment of the Confederacy more complete every day. The loss of New Orleans was a bewildering blow, from which there was no recovery but by the retaking of the city, and the prospects that we would be able to do this very soon were not particularly promising. In the mean time the Federals were evidently working resolutely to gain possession of the Mississippi River throughout its entire length, and strong as were the fortifications at Vicksburg and other points, I had not that faith in their invincibility I once would have had. I had seen too many positions proclaimed invincible and defended with valor, fall before the Federal attacks, for me to have anything of my old-time faith in the irresistible valor of Southern soldiers or the masterly generalship of Southern commanders. The old boast which I was accustomed to hear so often at the outbreak of the war, that one Southerner could whip five Yankees, had turned out to be mere boasting, and nothing more. The Federals, while they did not have all the dash and elan of the Confederates, had proved their fighting qualities on too many well-contested fields for the old-fashioned talk about the superiority of Southern prowess to be in order; and they had a way, when they once captured an important position, of
