None knew better than I the dangers surrounding such a trip, but I realized our need of reliable information to take the place of the flying rumors that could not be trusted, and well I knew that I would stand every chance of succeeding where others had failed. My love of adventure, my ambition, my duty to my country, all urged me on. There was nothing to weigh against the last. I was acquainted with every inch of the country. I had gone more times than I can number up and down both sides the river, to and from Washington and places in the vicinity. I was almost as much at home at several places near Hagerstown and Frederick as I was at S----, and every inch of the country between was familiar to me. I had hunted over it and knew every cross road and rabbit path, every short cut and ford, and I was well aware that I could baffle pursuit from an enemy not so entirely familiar with the country. I had no fear but what I could successfully personate my cousin. My cousin Salome and I were within a few months of the same age. She had but one sister and I was an only child. We had been together so much that we quite looked on ourselves as brother and sister, and I think our affection was strengthened by the exceedingly strong likeness we bore each other. So strong was the resemblance that when children we were constantly taken by strangers not only for brother and sister, but for twins. One of the favorite pranks of my boyhood had been to don one of Salome's dresses, and answering the first call made for her, deceive even her own mother, until a closer view proved the fraud. Since Salome had grown to the dignity of long dresses and done up hair, and I to long tailed coats, the resemblance was not so striking, and I, not liking to look so much like a girl, had done all I could to make it less so. Only the Christmas before, however, when we had all been together at S----, (I had not then joined the Union army), Salome and I had arrayed ourselves as two old ladies, with close-fitting, lace-frilled caps, and it had been a long time before any one could decide which was which, although all the company present had known us both from childhood. I had never met Captain DeLacy. He had been a stranger to Salome until they had met three months before at the White Sulphur, where he was staying to recover from a wound. It was a case of genuine love at first sight, and the engagement had been contracted on the eve of his departure for his regiment. At that time I had just entered the Federal army and Salome was feeling very sore over it, so I was pretty certain she had never confided to him that she had a cousin fighting against him, or indeed told him anything about me.