Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/420

386 for me. Naturally I cherished the hope that my night ride would give me the start of my rivals, the correspondents of other Northern papers, and was very much elated on learning that none of them had arrived before me. But imagine my dismay when the quartermaster, in reply to my question as to when the first boat would start for Washington, informed me that he had received orders before daylight from General Burnside not to allow any officer or soldier, or any one else attached to the army, or any civilian, and especially no press correspondents, to go North without a special permit from his headquarters.

This was a knockdown blow, for it looked not only as if I should be disappointed in my hope of getting ahead of my competitors, but as if my coming to Acquia Creek would prove a great blunder, leaving me separated from the army and unable to get back to it for at least a day, owing to my own extreme fatigue and the exhaustion of my animal. To my further disgust, C. C. Coffin, the correspondent of the Boston Journal writing under the signature of “Carleton,” whom I knew as one of the most intelligent, energetic, and indefatigable reporters in the field, turned up in the quartermaster's tent as I was finishing my break fast. To be sure, the interdict applied to him as well as to me, and he was always very genial company; but one never likes to discover that other people are as smart as one's self.

My ambition as a correspondent was too strong, how ever, to make me submit meekly to the situation. On the contrary, with body and spirit refreshed by a solid breakfast, nothing was further from my thoughts, and I resolved to try my best to defy Burnside and circumvent Coffin. But the resolution was easier than its execution, and I wandered up and down the long dock — the only dry spot in sight — for an hour or so, vainly taxing my brain for an escape from the trap I was caught in. It naturally occurred to me first to arrange to slip off secretly on one of the four vessels discharging on the dock, but on inquiry