soldier's wife, and expressing an extreme anxiety to see my husband, I was permitted to remain within the Federal lines, but was not afforded any particular facilities for finding out anything worth knowing. My anxiety now was to regain the Confederate lines at the earliest possible moment. As I knew the country pretty well, I felt certain of being able to find the farm-house where I had left my uniform, if I could only get a chance to go to it. Fortune favors the brave in a majority of cases, and ere long I was enabled to reach the house, but only to find that it had been burned, and, with the exception of the smoke-house and kitchen, was a mass of charred ruins.
I confess that my heart sank within me when I saw that the house had been destroyed, for I would have been in a nice predicament, and without my masculine garments would have been even more unwelcome among the Confederates than I was among the Federals. To my great joy, however, I discovered the ash-barrel just where I had placed it and unharmed, and in a few moments I had discarded my feminine raiment, and was once more in the guise of a Confederate officer. The costume I wore, however, was not one in which I could appear with impunity in that neighborhood, and it was necessary, therefore, that I should make haste to get where it would be regarded with friendly feelings.
Ere many moments I was crawling through the underbrush and under the fences, with my coat and cap tied up in a bundle, so that I could drop them in case of necessity. In this way I worked myself slowly and cautiously along for several hours during the night: in the direction of the Confederate outposts. When it was light enough for me to see with reasonable distinctness, I made a reconnoisance, and concluded that I must have been within the Confederate lines for more than an hour.
To my left I saw the railroad track tolerably close to the road I was on, and the smoke of the camp was clearly visible. I then crept back into the bush and made for the nearest camp, not wishing to be stopped either by friend or foe at this particular point. Before I reached the point I was aiming at, however, I was compelled to take a rest, for the kind of travelling I had been doing was the hardest kind of hard work, and I was tolerably well used up. Drawing on my coat, therefore, I sat down and began to think what story it would be best for me to tell in order to obtain such a reception as I
