The auspicious day, the 4th of March, at length arrived, and whilst the glorious pageant is being prepared; whilst the windows and the house-tops along Pennsylvania Avenue are being thronged with a motley population of men and women, come to see the show; whilst the President elect, in a hollow square of bayonets, is marching toward the Capitol, the writer of these pages, having again taken leave of his family, was hurrying away from the desecration of a capital, which had been ceded by a too credulous Maryland, and Virginia, and which had been laid out by Washington. As I left the Baltimore depot, extra trains were still pouring their thousands into the streets of Washington. I arrived in New York, the next day, and during the next three weeks, visited the West Point Academy, whither I went to see a son, who was a cadet at the Institution, and who afterward became a major of light artillery, in the Confederate service; and made a tour through the principal work-shops of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
I found the people everywhere, not only willing, but anxious to contract with me. I purchased large quantities of percussion caps in the city of New York, and sent them by express without any disguise, to Montgomery. I made contracts for batteries of light artillery, powder, and other munitions, and succeeded in getting large quantities of the powder shipped. It was agreed between the contractors and myself, that when I should have occasion to use the telegraph, certain other words were to be substituted, for those of military import, to avoid suspicion.
I made a contract, conditioned upon the approval of my Government, for the removal to the Southern States, of a complete set of machinery for rifling cannon, with the requisite skilled workmen to put it in operation. Some of these men, who would thus have sold body, and soul to me, for a sufficient consideration, occupied high social positions, and were men of wealth. I dined with them, at their comfortable residences near their factories, where the music of boring out cannon, accompanied the clatter of the dishes, and the popping of champagne-corks; and I had more than one business interview with gentlemen, who occupied the most costly suites of apartments at the Astor House in New York City. Many of these gentlemen, being unable to carry out their contracts with the Confederate States because of the prompt breaking out of the war, afterward obtained lucrative contracts from the Federal Government, and became, in consequence, intensely _loyal_. It would be a _quasi_ breach of honor to disclose their names, as they dealt with me, pretty much as conspirators against their government are wont to deal with the enemies of their government, secretly, and with an implied confidence that I would keep their secret. It is accordingly safe.