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course of the day, for example, I bought a little box containing
50 segars which I sent to Col Rutledge who was in So Carolina
and paid $100 dollars for it, and Richard Corbin, whom I in-
vited to dine with me, took me to a very nice place on a side
street where we ate a good meal for about $30 a piece, including
dessert. After the paymaster I had, for some reason, to go to the
office of the general commanding the city, who was General Ewell
and then I met Mr Orgain Allen who has already been mentioned
twice. He was glad to see me and invited me to breakfast with
him the next morning. Afterwards I went to the State House
where the Confederate Congress was sitting and asked for Mr
Wm. Porcher Miles who was the Representative from Charleston.
He came out into the lobby and greeted me cordially, and I
presented him with the last London Punch which I had brought
with me. I then returned to my hotel and there met my old friend
John Izard Middleton, who was a quartermaster stationed between
Richmond and Petersburg. He took a message for me to Corbin
which caused him to ride into the city when we met. I also in
the course of the day met the Rev Mr Handy who had been at
Fort Delaware when I first reached the prison. He remembered
me out of hundreds of other men whom he had met, and pressed
me to take tea with him that evening, but I was already engaged
to go out with Welford Corbin who took me to visit two different
Richmond families. At the first house a large drawing room
was well filled with many ladies, most of whom were young and
unmarried. It seemed to be a sociable gathering of friends
and relations, and I talked for about a half hour with a
pretty young Miss who was very chatty. I think the name of the
family was Maury, for, when we were leaving, a gentleman of
that name who was a naval officer accompanied us into the
entryway, and asked some questions about Capt Morris, who had
been in command of the Florida, which has been mentioned. That
gentleman had commanded a Confederate cruiser called the Geor-
gia, but she was found to be so slow that he returned with her to
England and she was sold. I have already explained that Wel-
ford Corbin had married the daughter of Commodore Maury.
He seemed well known in Richmond and took me to pay another
visit the same evening.

The next morning at the appointed hour I was at Mr Allen’s for breakfast.
There I met his charming wife whom I knew already and two sons,
young boys. A gentleman from Maryland named Sothern was
also a guest. He had killed a yankee officer who came on his
plantation to recruit some of his slaves for the black regiments,
and immediately escaped to Virginia to avoid arrest and
probable hanging. He was very bitter against the North and would
not listen to the possibility of the war ending disastrously to the
South. If it did, he said, the South would be made to bite the dust
by the revengeful North for the crime of rebellion.” If regularly or-
ganised armies found it impossible to longer hold the field a gue-
rilla warfare should be carried on as was done by Marion,
Sumter and Pickens in South Carolina during the revolution.”

Mr Allen had warned me when inviting me that his breakfast
would be a very poor one, but that was only a “façon de parler” for I