my disguise was finally penetrated, and I was forced to resume the garments of my sex, it is probable that a vast number of my late associates will now for the first time learn that the handsome young officer—I was accounted an uncommonly good-looking fellow, when dressed in my best uniform, in those days—was a woman, and a woman who was mentally making some very uncomplimentary notes with regard to much of their very naughty conversation. My experience is, that the language used by the very best men in masculine society is too often not such as pure-minded women would like to listen to, while that of the worst is so utterly revolting, that it is a pity some men cannot always have decent women at their elbows to keep their tongues from being fouled with blasphemy and obscenity. I hope that some of my late associates; when they learn that the Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, whose ears were so often greeted by their profanity and ribaldry, will have enough self-respect to blush with
shame at having addressed the language they did to a woman, and a modest woman at that.
What I have just said will give a hint of some of the most unpleasant incidentals of the role which I undertook to play. I was not to be deterred, however, from carrying out my plans by the bad language I was compelled to listen to, nor by any other of the disagreeable features of camp life. How well I did play my part, happily does not depend upon my own testimony alone, for some of the most distinguished officers of the Confederate army, and many equally distinguished civilians, can and will testify to the truthfulness of the story I am about to relate, and to the unblemished character I bore while in the Confederate service. I not only assumed the garment of my sex once more with the credit of having done the state some important services, and of having labored with efficiency, courage, and energy to secure the independence of the Confederacy, but, with my womanly reputation unblemished by even a suspicion of impropriety; and I take this occasion to say, in a very positive manner, that women, if they will, may pass through the most trying scenes with unblemished reputations, and that they have much more to dread in this particular matter from the scandalous gossip of city, village, and country neighborhoods, than they have from camp associations, with all their license of language and conduct.
