one with the feeling that he could say a great deal more if he only would.
Washington was at that time full of illy regulated and discontented spirits. Women also had ranged all the way from flannels to flirtation. Among many better women was the femme incomprise, who wanted to "nurse in the hospitals." She, however, wished to do the poetry of nursing — the writing of letters for some mysterious nobleman who was now posing as a common soldier, and who should make this beautiful and fashionable nurse his confidante.
Then, again, there were women spies and women traitors in high places who had the inside track, and who sheltered themselves behind their sex. This miserable spy business, which seems one of the worst horrors of war, contaminating him who gives and him who takes, was amplified and most terribly complicated by the fact that the daughters and wives of distinguished Northern generals were perhaps Southern sympathizers and ready to betray the secrets of the Northern army. There was one such who gave General McClellan great trouble. She was graceful and winning. She went through the camps learning the character of army officers; was as keen and sagacious as she was winning, and was a favorite with all men of mark. And what a strange time it was! Who knew his neighbor? Who was a traitor and who a patriot? The hero of to-day was the suspected of to-morrow. No one knew when he went to bed whether he should rise a general, or, ceasing to be anybody, should be consigned to disgrace and the Capitol prison; for our great War Minister, possessed of strong virtues, was also arbitrary and violent almost to a fault.
Through many such a maze was the plain, honest, in-
