With the close of the war and mustering out of service came new duties and responsibilities which I had hardly contemplated during my school days. The question of ways and means again confronted me. I desired first to continue the course of study which had been interrupted by my enlistment, and secondly to carry out my cherished plans for exploration. Having a journal kept during my incarceration in and escapes from Southern prisons, I was advised and decided to amplify and publish it if possible with a view to promoting these projects. Going to New York, I at once sought the leading publishers. My manuscript was submitted to the Harpers, Appletons, Scribners, and some others, but as I was entirely unknown, few cared to undertake the publication and none seemed disposed to allow a royalty which to me at least seemed consistent with the time and labor expended in preparation. I had now spent my last dollar in the Metropolis in pursuit of a publisher, and in this dilemma it was thought best to return to Albany, where I had friends and perhaps some credit, and endeavor to bring out the book by subscription. This course would compel me to assume the cost of production, but if successful would prove much more lucrative than if issued in the usual way through the trade. Fully resolved upon retracing my steps to Albany, I was most fortunate in meeting an old comrade and friend to whom I frankly stated my plans and circumstances. He immediately loaned me twenty dollars with which to continue my search for a publisher and to meet in the meantime necessary current expenses. On reaching Albany an attic room and meals were secured for a trifling sum, arrangements made with a publisher, and the work of getting out the book begun. While the printer was engaged in composing, stereotyping, printing and binding the work, I employed my spare time in a door-to-door canvass of the city for subscriptions, promising to deliver on the orders as soon as the books came from the press. In this way the start was made and before the close of the year hundreds of agencies were established throughout the country. The venture proved successful beyond my most sanguine expectations, and where I had expected to dispose of two or three editions and to realize a few hundred dollars from the sale of "Capture, Prison-Pen and Escape," the book had a sale of over 400,000 copies and netted me $75,000, This remarkable success, rivalling in its financial results even "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which had just had a run of 300,000 copies, was most gratifying and led to the publication, at intervals, of "Three Years in the Federal Cavalry," "Battles for the Union," and "Heroes of Three Wars."