more likelihood there would be of suspicion attaching to my movements. At the same time I was anxious to avoid any
appearance of mystery, and took particular pains to let myself be seen frequently, and to leave the impression that I was what I pretended to be a widow, in reduced circumstances, who was only waiting to receive money from England in order to return to that country. I kept up a sort of acquaintance with a few officers of the Federal army, to whom I had been introduced, which I was the more pleased to do as they were very pleasant gentlemen, and contrived, by frequent allusions to the subject, to fix in their minds the idea that I had been robbed, and otherwise outrageously maltreated by the Confederates, and that the arrival of the Federals was a source of infinite satisfaction to me.
From these officers I sometimes succeeded in obtaining information that was worth having by judiciously keeping my ears open, or by asking an apparently innocent question at the proper moment. I was, however, very careful not to appear to question them, or to do anything that would in the slightest degree arouse their suspicions. My acquaintance with them was kept up for the purpose of having it understood at headquarters, and among the officers generally, that I was one of the few women in New Orleans who professed Union sentiments. My means of gaining intelligence were such as these gentlemen had little idea of, and were of such a character that there was no necessity for me to risk anything by imprudent conversation with them. Indeed, it was very evident sometimes, judging from their conversation, that I was very fully informed about a great many things with regard to which they knew little or nothing.
I do not know whether or not Butler and his satellites ever suspected me, up to the time they caught me. When I was finally detected, and arraigned before the general, he tried his best to play the bully, and to frighten me into making some admissions, and he intimated that I had been under surveillance for a long time. This, however, was probably all brag, or at least I chose to understand it as such ; and as I did not frighten at all to his satisfaction, he did not succeed in making a great deal out of me.
Not a great while after my return from Havana, I undertook to go to Robertson's Plantation, for the purpose of sending some despatches, as well as some verbal information, to the Confederate forces stationed at Franklin. It was neces-
