"Yes; and now is the time to strike." "Well, I am going down into the Confederacy to be gone several days, perhaps two weeks, and I will try and see Sol. Street and find out what he will do about it, and I will let you know on my return." "Well, do. I am sure that you can't make five thousand dollars easier." In the morning, I resumed my journey, and had proceeded as far as Waterford, when I accidentally come across Sol. Street. He immediately recognized me as an old acquaintance. After conversing awhile, I said to him, "Sol., you like to make money and so do I, and it don't matter much how we make it, either. I know of a chance for both of us to make something." "Well, what is it?" "There is a large lot of cotton in the country, to the rear of your men, and there is a Yankee cotton-buyer, that has seen the cotton, who says that it is worth eighty cents a pound, and that if you will agree to withdraw your men for ten days, and allow him, unmolested, to haul the cotton out with Federal teams, he will sell the cotton and pay over to me one-half of the proceeds of the cotton for you, and will give me five thousand dollars. What do you think of that, Sol.?" "Will you be responsible to me for my share?" "Yes, I will, and I think it is as fine a chance for you to make a little fortune, and do it easy, as you will ever have. What do you say, will you do it?" "Yes, I will; I am bound to make money out of this war, and I don't care a d--n how I do it." "That's the understanding then, is it?" "Yes, and when you get ready to have the cotton out, let me know it, and I'll withdraw the men." However well I had completed the arrangements, I had no intention of participating in a traffic of that kind on my own responsibility. I relate it merely that the reader may see one of the internal phases of this monstrous rebellion. Others have made money in that way. The journey from Waterford to Grenada was a painfully lonesome one. Not a human being, save a few citizens at Oxford, were seen to enliven the solitude that prevailed. Scarcely a living being was to be seen, save perhaps, now and then, a poor, old, blind and crippled mule or horse, in the last stages of starvation. Even the feathered songsters of the forest seemed to realize the utter desolation that prevailed, and lent, by their silence and seclusion, to that inexpressible gloom. Scarcely a fence or plantation-house remained to mark the place where happiness and prosperity had once existed. Huge chimney-stacks pointed out where the consuming elements had been, and stood as monuments of retribution that was being meted out to those whose folly had led them to participate in their own fearful destruction. I involuntarily exclaimed, "Surely, the way of the transgressor is hard!"