138 THE FEDERAL PLANS. I had a plan of procedure in my mind in which I had great confidence, but I really trusted more to circumstances than to any definite plan, having ample belief in my own ability to take advantage of anything that might turn up. While on the way to Washington, therefore, I judged it prudent to do as little talking as possible, although I kept my eyes and ears open for any scraps of useful knowledge that might present themselves. ARRIVAL IN WASHINGTON. On arriving in Washington, I went to Brown's Hotel, and having learned that an officer of the regular Federal army, with whom I was well acquainted, and who had been a warm personal friend of my late husband, was in the city, I sent him a note, asking him to call on me. He came to see me very promptly on receiving my message, and greeting me with a good deal of cordiality, expressed a desire to aid me in any manner that lay in his power. I told him that I was just from New York, and making up a plausible story to account for my being in Washington, began to question him about the progress of the war. He evidently had not the slightest idea that I was in Washington for any other purpose than what he would have considered a perfectly legitimate one, and con sequently spoke without any reserve concerning a number of matters about which he would certainly have kept silent had he suspected that I had just come from the other side of the Potomac, and that my object was to pick up items of informa tion that would be useful to the Confederacy. He greatly lamented the defeat which the Federals had met with at Ball's Bluff, and from what he said, I judged that the affair was the great sensation of the hour, and that it had caused much discouragement, not only in the army, but among all classes of people at the North. Indeed, my friend was decidedly blue when discussing the subject, and expressed himself in very energetic terms with regard to the rebels, little thinking that he was conversing with one who had played a most active part in the very thickest of the battle. He went on to say, however, that it was expected that the deteat at Ball's Bluff would be more than compensated for very shortly, and that in Kentucky, particularly, the Federals were making great preparations for an active campaign, which, it was hoped, would do material damage to the Confederacy. I succeeded, by judicious questioning, in obtaining a few
