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432 from the great raid, for which I was now working, than I did from the election of General McClellan.

Neither the raid nor the election turned out as it was hoped they would, but just about that time barren hopes were pretty much all that Confederate patriotism and enthusiasm were fed on, and they were rapidly getting starved for lack of more solid meat. The failure of the contemplated raid in the rear, and the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, put an end to all expectations of such a division of sentiment at the North as would be of any benefit to the Confederacy, and there was nothing to be done but to fight the thing out to the bitter end.

The period which preceded the overthrow of the Confederacy was, however, one of brilliant campaigning and desperate fighting, and was the time when the Confederate agents and spies at the North labored with the greatest assiduity. The performances of these agents and spies have never yet been related as they deserved to be, and this narrative of my adventures, personal as it is in its nature, and limited as it necessarily is in its scope, will, I trust, be regarded as a not uninteresting or unimportant contribution to a history of some of the least understood phases of the great conflict.