think of associating in the manner you propose with soldiers engaged in warfare."
This, with a good deal of the same kind of talk, convinced me that he would never give his consent to my project; so I pretended to be satisfied with his arguments, but was, nevertheless, resolved more firmly than ever, so soon as he took his departure, to put my plans into execution. I waited impatiently for him to leave, intending to give him a genuine surprise when next we met, and to show him that his wife was as good a soldier as he, and was bent upon doing as much or more for the cause which both had at heart. For the present, however, I said nothing concerning my intentions.
My Husband's Departure.
On the 8th of April my husband started for Richmond, apparently under the impression that, as I had said nothing for several days about accompanying him, I had abandoned all notion of doing so. He ought to have known me better, and to have been assured that a woman of my obstinate temper was not to be prevented by mere argument from carrying out a pet scheme which promised such glorious results as the one we had been discussing.
My husband's farewell kisses were scarcely dry upon my
lips, when I made haste to attire myself in one of his suits, and to otherwise disguise myself as a man, as well as was practicable with such material as I had at hand. The first thing to be done before I made any attempt to play a masculine role at all prominently in public was, of course, to get some properly fitting clothing. Exactly how to accomplish this without being discovered, or at least suspected, was the great problem now before me. Everything depended, I well-knew, upon starting right; and the slightest suspicion at this time, in the mind of any one who happened to see or speak to me, might, and probably would, interfere materially with the success of my operations in the future. I had, however, some time before taken notice of a small tailor's shop on a retired street not very far from the hotel, the presiding genius of which was a not very brilliant-looking German, and I thought perhaps I might run the gantlet of his scrutiny without much fear of detection, especially as I proposed to leave Memphis at as early a day as possible after obtaining my male raiment.
