Raulston told me
he had decided to detail me for this duty and directed me to report to
General Burnside. I rode to the latter's headquarters, where he gave me
a letter to the War Department and one addressed to his wife. The latter
he requested me to mail in Washington, mail communication with the army
at that time having been temporarily cut off.

I started immediately in a dense fog for Belle Plain, riding all night,
and was obliged to procure a fresh horse in the morning at
Fredericksburg. I sailed from Belle Plain for Washington, arriving the
next morning, and as soon as the War Department opened for business I
presented my letters, and was informed that the necessary ammunition
would be placed on a tug which would be ready to sail for Belle Plain
that afternoon.

I was told that a permit had been given to the late Bishop McIlvaine, of
Ohio, and George H. Stuart, the president of the Christian Commission,
to go on the boat with me, they having been granted permission to go to
the front to look into the practical working of the United States
Christian Commission. When the tug sailed, I being the only United
States officer or soldier on board, Mr. Stuart introduced himself to me,
and then presented me to the Bishop. Later he came to me and said that
it was proposed to have a brief prayer-meeting in the cabin, at which
were present the Bishop, Mr. Stuart, and one or two representatives of
the Christian Commission, and a lady, who, I was told, had a pass from
Mr. Lincoln permitting her to go to the front to see her son, who was
wounded. It impressed me as an exceedingly pathetic and remarkable
incident, and I remember that, being brought up a Presbyterian, I was a
little curious to see whether the Bishop would read his prayers from the
prayer-book or would make one extemporaneously. He, however, made what
seemed to me then one of the most affecting and beautiful extempore
prayers I ever listened to. When the little steamboat reached Belle
Plain, the Bishop's party were put into an ambulance and had an escort
of a part of a regiment to take them to Fredericksburg, as the
intervening country was raided by Mosby's men and all wagon trains
between Belle Plain and Fredericksburg had to be heavily guarded.

No transportation being provided for me to take my ammunition to the
front, I took the responsibility of taking some wagons belonging to
General Potter's division, none of my own being available. I did this
without au