When, late in last autumn, I determined to start for the Confederate States as soon as necessary preparations could be completed, I had listened, not only to my own curiosity, impelling me at least to see one campaign of a war, the like of which this world has never known, but also to the suggestions of those who thought that I might find materials there for a book that would interest many here in England. My intention, from the first, was to serve as a volunteer-aide in the staff of the army in

Looking back on an experience of many lands and seas, I cannot recall a single scene more utterly dreary and desolate than that which awaited us, the outward-bound, in the early morning of the 20th of last December. The same sullen neutral tint pervaded and possessed everything—the leaden sky—the bleak, brown shores over against us—the dull graystone work lining the quays—the foul yellow water—shading one into the other, till the division-lines became hard to discern. Even where the fierce gust

Of two lines to Philadelphia I selected the longest, wishing to see the harbor, down which a steamer takes passengers as far as Amboy; but the Powers of the Air were unpropitious again: it never ceased blowing, from the moment we went on board a very unpleasant substitute for the regular passage-boat, till we landed on the railway pier. My first experience of American travel was not attractive. The crazy old craft puffed and snorted furiously, but failed to persuade any one that she was doing ei

The southward approach to Baltimore is very well managed. The railroad makes an abrupt curve, as it sweeps round the marshy woodlands through which the Patapsco opens into the bay; so that you have a fair view of the entire city, swelling always upwards from the water's edge, on a cluster of low, irregular hills, to the summit of Mount Vernon. From that highest point soars skyward a white, glistening pillar crowned by Washington's statue. I have seldom seen a monument better placed, and it is wo

I may not deny that I found the places in which my lines were just then cast exceedingly pleasant: if no serious purpose had been before me I could have been contented to sojourn there till spring had waned. But it is some satisfaction now to be able to think and say—I do say it, in perfect honesty and sincerity—that I did not lose sight of my journey's main object for one single day from first to last. Indeed I should have felt far more impatient of delay had it not been for the continuance of

In about ten days I heard from Mr. Symonds. The road was not yet open, but a party was waiting to start. He had secured me a henchman in the shape of a private in an Alabama regiment who was anxious to accompany any one south, without fee or reward. The man was said to be well acquainted with the country beyond the Potomac, besides being really honest and courageous. I had no reason to question these qualifications, though his tongue was apt to stir too loudly for prudence, and too fast for trut

I had not been in Baltimore three days when my plans were somewhat altered by the introduction of a fresh agent. The guide, who accompanied Lord Hartington and Colonel Leslie, had returned unexpectedly, and Symonds pressed me strongly to secure his services. He had made the traverse several times successfully, and was thoroughly acquainted with most of the ground on both banks of the Potomac. He had now made his way on foot from the Shenandoah Valley, across the Alleghany Range, to Oakland; then

Early on Monday, the 30th of April, I addressed myself to the journey once more, taking the cars to Cumberland, whither Falcon had preceded me by two days, and this time I bound myself by a vow—not lightly to be broken—that I would not see Baltimore again, of free will or free agency, till I had heard the tuck of Southern drums. The most remarkable part of the road is from Point of Rocks to Harper's Ferry, inclusive, where the rails find a narrow space to creep between the river and the cliffs o

Before I had struggled clear of my horse, Shipley's hand was on my shoulder, and his hurried whisper in my ear. "What shall we do? Will you surrender?" Now, though I knew already that I had escaped with a flesh-wound from a spent bullet, I felt that I could not hope to make quick tracks that night. Certain reasons—wholly independent of personal convenience—made me loth to part with my saddle-bags; besides this, I own I shrank from the useless ignominy of being hunted down like a wild beast on th

The miserable first-waking—dreariest of all hours that follow a great loss or disaster—came late to me. I had gone through a certain amount of knocking-about—mental and bodily—in the last week; and, for eight nights, the nearest approach to a bed had been the extempore couch of a railway-car. So, on an unhappy emaciated palliasse, covered by a dusty horse-rug (it took me four days to weary the jailer into a concession of sheets), I slept, all noises notwithstanding, far into my first prison-day.

So—heavier with each link—the chain of days dragged on. My room mate soon thawed into a stolid sociability, and was quite disposed to be communicative; but his narrative riches about matched those of the knife-grinder, and his military experience of one year only embraced one battle—that of Manassas. His ideas of English society were very remarkable. The works of Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds are much favored, it appears, by the class who believe in Mr. George F. Train's veracity and eloquence; from the

Now that this personal narrative is drawing rapidly to its close, there is one point to which I must needs allude, at the risk of sinning egotistically. While under lock and key, I never ventured to grapple with the subject. Even now—sitting in a pleasant room, with windows opening down on a trim lawn studded with flower-jewels and girdled with the mottled belts of velvet-green that are the glory of Devonion shrub-land, beyond which Tobray shimmers broad and blue under the breezy summer weather—

It was ordained that the navy should reap all the boys and the men that were to be gathered in the warfare of this spring. The amphibious failures in the southwest involved no graver consequences than a vast futile expenditure of Northern time, money, and men; such waste has been too common, of late, to excite much popular disgust or surprise. In other parts, the keenest correspondent has been put to great straits for memorable matter; for a skirmish, or a raid, even on a large scale, can hardly

There is one very vexed question, the importance of which, both in the present and for the future, can hardly be over-estimated. It does not depend on the vicissitudes, the duration, or even the termination of the war: rather it will become more gravely complicated as prospects of peace dawn clearer. In which direction do the sympathies and interests of the Border States actually tend? Let it be understood that the point to be decided is—not whether the Democrats in those parts are politically s

Everyone in anywise interested, practically or theoretically, in the Great War, is just now prophesying of the future, simply because it looks vaguer and dimmer than ever. So I will hazard my guess at truth before all is done. I am no more capable of giving a valid opinion as to the chances or resources of the South than if I had never left these English shores. Proximity that is not positive presence, rather embarrasses one's judgment, for the nearer you approach the frontier-line, the more you