In the autumn of 1862, the state of my sister Alice’s health demanded a change of climate so imperatively that we had no option in the consideration of the emergency. Her throat was seriously affected; she had not spoken above a whisper for six months. To keep her in Newark for another winter was not to be thought of. Our parents were writing by every available flag of truce strenuous orders that she should “come home.” In early October, Mr. Terhune took her down to an obscure village in Maryland directly upon Chesapeake Bay. It was, in fact, a smuggling-station, from which merchandise of various sorts was ferried into Virginia, in direct violation of embargo laws. Southern sympathizers, whom loyalists were beginning to brand as “Copperheads”—a name that stuck fast to them throughout the war—ran the enterprise and profited by it. Through one of these, information sifted to us of which we made use. When necessity drives, it will not do to be fastidious as to instruments that will save us. At dead of night my young sister was put into a boat, warmly wrapped from the river-fogs, and, in charge of a Richmond gentleman who was returning home, sent across the unlicensed ferry. Her father awaited her on the other shore. A mile above and a mile below, lurid gleams, like the eyes of river-monsters watching for their prey, showed where United States gunboats lay in mid-stream to intercept unlawful commerce and to arrest offenders. My husband did not impart to me the details of the adventure until we had heard of the child’s restoration to her father’s arms. Then he told of the fearful anxiety with which he waited on the Maryland shore, under starless skies, scanning the menacing lights up and down the river, and straining his ears for the ripple against the sides of the boat making its way, cautiously, with muffled oars, across the watery track. To deflect from the viewless course would be to awaken the sleeping dogs of war. The lonely watcher feared every minute to see from either of the gunboats a flash of fire, followed by the boom of a cannon, signalling the discovery of the attempt to evade the embargo. “The dreariest vigil imaginable!” he said. “I stayed there for two hours, until I was sure the boat must have made the landing. Had it been intercepted, I should have seen some change in the position of those red eyes and heard a shot.” Before she embarked he had given the fugitive a self-addressed envelope enclosing a card, on which was written: “Arrived safely.” She pencilled below—“Alice,” and sent it back by the boatman. It was a week old when he got it, and creased and soiled by much handling. Then fell silence, that was felt every waking hour, and lasted for four long months. On the first day of February, my husband being absent from home, I walked down to the city post-office with Mrs. Greenleaf, my eldest sister-in-law, who was visiting us, and took from our box a thin letter addressed in my mother’s hand, and stamped “FLAG OF TRUCE.”