In the first place she purchased a suit of contraband clothing, real plantation style such as the male negroes wore, and then went to a barber and had her hair sheared close to her head. After that, by the use of stains and dyes she colored her face, and then she was ready for business. It might be well to state, at this stage of the narrative, that Emma Edmonds while in the secret service penetrated the enemy’s lines, in various disguises, no less than eleven times; always with complete success and without detection. She started on her first expedition toward the Confederate capitol with the greatest confidence imaginable. With a few hard crackers in her pocket and her revolver loaded and capped she began the journey on foot, and without a blanket or any other kind of baggage that might excite suspicion. At half-past nine o’clock at night she passed the outer picket line of the Union army and at twelve o’clock was within the Confederate lines without once being halted by a sentinel. Once she passed within ten rods of a Confederate picket without being detected. As soon as she had gone a safe distance from the picket lines she lay down and rested until morning. The night was chilly and the ground damp and she passed the weary hours in fear and trembling. The first thing in the morning she met a party of negroes carrying hot coffee and provisions to the Confederate pickets. This was most fortunate for she made their acquaintance, and after securing a hot breakfast she marched into Yorktown with them without eliciting the slightest suspicion. The negroes went to work at once on fortifications that were being erected, and the spy was left by herself. But an officer seeing her a few minutes later turned to an overseer and said: “Take that black rascal and set him to work, and if he don’t work well tie him up and give him twenty lashes.” So saying he rode away, and the disguised one was conducted to a breastwork which was in course of erection and where there were about a hundred negroes at work. She was soon furnished with a pick and shovel and a wheelbarrow and put to work. It was hard—hard enough for the strongest man, but with occasional assistance from some kind-hearted darky she managed to do her part. All day long she worked in this manner until her hands were blistered and her back nearly broken. When night came she was released from her toil and was free to go where she pleased. She made good use of her liberty. She wandered about the place and made out a brief report of the mounted guns she found in her ramble around the fort. There were fifteen three-inch rifle cannon, eighteen four and a half inch rifle cannon, twenty-nine thirty-two pounders, twenty-three eight-inch Columbiads, eleven nine-inch Dalgrens, thirteen ten-inch Columbiads, fourteen ten-inch mortars and seven eight-inch siege howitzers.