To describe the ride to the Army of the Potomac would take too long, and there is really nothing worthy of much note until I got to the army itself. At the camp every courtesy was shown me, and then I saw what few persons now alive at this time ever saw, and that was 90,000 men encamped in tents and under arms. It would be useless for me to try to describe this vast army. Its very magnitude was too great for the mind to grasp. Men I saw, and men, and still men, everywhere and all about. There literally seemed to be no end of them, and the idea then formed itself in my mind that this great armed mass of humanity must and would conquer the South. I prize my visit to the Army of the Potomac under General Grant as one of the greatest and most interesting experiences in my life. As to the army, I cannot well speak from the knowledge I then had, but I certainly got the impression when walking along the miles and miles of streets with canvas houses at the sides that there was no want, that everything needful was served to these men in the fullest extent and of the best. The cavalry, I remember lay off some little distance from the infantry, and such a mass of horse and mule flesh it has been the lot of but few to see. Some 12,000 horses, I think, were in the camp. Not the least restraint was placed upon me, but I was free to go where and when I listed, while at almost every officer’s mess I was a welcome guest. Great good-nature was the order of the day, and it was indeed a gay scene, with the regimental bands and bright colors and the pomp and panoply of war. As to visiting the Confederates, I was assured that a flag of truce would easily put me over, but I began to think I had seen as much of the military as my brain, uneducated in military matters, could take in, and consequently not wishing to stay my welcome out too far, and fearing a movement on the part of the army, I began the ride back to Washington. When within a few miles of Long Bridge, and in plain sight of the Capitol and Washington itself, on looking back, a great cloud of dust seemed to be coming up, as if trying to overtake me, from the direction I had come. I was startled, of course, but I halted, and before half an hour had elapsed along came the most confused mass of humanity one could think of--men on foot, on cannons, on mules, on horses, some with guns, some without, but all bowling along for Washington in the fastest possible time.