Page:The woman in battle .djvu/516

460 but, as he was paid handsomely for holding his tongue, he kept his own counsel and ours. When everything was ready, the schooner was loaded at Pier No. 4, North River, and she sailed for Havana with a regular clearance, one of my associates making matters all right at the custom-house, so that the vessel had no difficulty in getting away.

The greatest trouble we had was not in getting our schooner to sea, but in making our purchases without exciting suspicion that we intended to find our market in some Confederate port. To do this required circumspect management; but some of those with whom I was co-operating had done this sort of thing before, and knew how to go about it; while I was not long in learning all the tricks of the trade, so as to be able to perform the part assigned me with as much shrewdness as any of them.

According to the plan which we arranged, I was to pretend that I intended opening a store, and was to visit some of the largest houses, and obtain their prices and terms of payment. The terms varied from sixty to ninety days, or so much off for cash. At one of the most extensive dry goods establishments in New York,—— Messrs. C—— & Co.,—— I inquired for a Mr. B——, who, on being informed that I had been sent to him by certain parties, whose names I mentioned, introduced me to a confidential clerk, who undertook to fill my orders, and deliver the goods in accordance with my instructions. He understood the whole matter thoroughly, and, from various expressions he let drop in conversation, I had no difficulty in concluding that his firm was doing a big contraband trade, although the principals, like many other prominent merchants, were taking especial good care not to be known as having anything to do with it.

The leading members of this firm were very prominent as upholders of the Federal cause, and it would have been ruin to them had it been found out that they were surreptitiously shipping goods to the South. I never was^quite able to make up my mind whether they really knew what was going on or not. At any rate, all the arrangements for carrying on a contraband traffic were very, complete in their establishment, and any one going there with proper credentials was sure of receiving every attention. If these gentlemen did not know what their employees were doing, they were much less shrewd than they had the credit of being ; and I am afraid that a love of gain was a more powerful incentive in their bosoms than