At any other time than the present, before proceeding with the relation of the events that transpired in the house on West 3-- Street after the arrival of Colonel Egbert Crawford and Miss Bell Crawford,--it might be both proper and politic to indulge in a disquisition on the meanness of peeping and the general iniquity of the spy system. At any other time--not now, when the country is deep in the horrors of a war that principally seems to have been a failure on our side because we have not "peeped" and "spied" enough.[2] The rebels have had the advantage of us from the beginning,--not only because they were fighting comparatively on their own ground and among a friendly population, but because they at once applied the spy system when they began, and nosed out all our secrets of army and cabinet, while we have neglected spying and scouting, and made every important military movement a plunge in the dark. [Footnote 2: December 15th, 1862.] Every military commander has blamed every other military commander for inefficiency in this respect, and when brought to the test he has showed that he himself had a _terra incognita_ to go over in making his first advance. Quite a number of well-known people who were present may remember a few words of conversation which took place on the Union Course at one of the contests there between Princess and Flora Temple (was it not?) in June, 1861. Schenck had just plunged a few regiments, huddled up in railroad cars, into the mouths of the rebel batteries at Vienna, as if he had been taking a contract to feed some great military monster with victims as quickly and in as compact a form as possible. The country was horrified over the slaughter, Ball's Bluff and Fredericksburgh not having yet offered up their holocausts to dwarf it by comparison. An officer of prominence under McDowell, then in command of the Potomac Army under Scott, had come home on a furlough and was present. Many inquiries were made of him by acquaintances, as to the progress and prospects of the war. Among other things, the Vienna blunder was called to his attention. "Oh," said the officer--"that was one of the most stupid of blunders--all owing to the fact that the ground had not been properly reconnoitered beforehand! They seem to have had neither scouts nor spies, and what else than failure _could_ be the result?" "True," said one of the bystanders. "And the Potomac army--that is going to advance pretty soon, as I hear--is _that_ all right in the respect you have named?" "What? _McDowell's_ army?" said the officer, contemptuously. "When you catch _Irwin McDowell_ not knowing exactly what is ahead of him and around him, you will catch a weasel asleep!" So all the bystanders believed, and were confident accordingly. Four weeks afterwards Irwin McDowell fought the battle of Manassas, the result of which showed the most utter ignorance of the opposing fortifications and forces in front, that had ever been recorded in any history![3]