In General Morell’s tent I had been offered a lieutenant’s commission,—­a blank fully signed and ready to fill, but had rejected it, through vanity perhaps—­the vanity that told me to first perform a duty for which the honour had been soothingly offered.

My plans—­I had no plans.  I had started.

What was the weather when I started that night?  I do not know.  I was making for the swamp; I would go to the swamp; I would look for an opportunity—­that was all.

The swamp was soon around me.  I filed right.  I found mire and bush, and many obstacles.  The obstacles stirred my reason.  To follow every crook of this winding stream was absurd.  I came out of the swamp and began to skirt its edge.  I looked toward my right—­the northeast; the sky reflected a dim glow from many dying camp-fires.  I could see how the low swamp’s edge bent in and out, and how I could make a straighter course than the river.  In some places a path was found.  Our pickets were supposed to be on the edge of the hills behind me.

My course was northwestward.  I crossed two roads which ran at right angles to my course and probably entered Richmond.  On each of them successively I advanced until I could see a bridge, upon which I knew it would not be safe to venture, for it was no doubt held by the Confederates.  I continued up the stream, approaching it at times to see if it had narrowed.

About two miles, I supposed, from our cavalry vedettes, I crossed a railroad.  On the other side I turned southward.  The ground was covered with dense undergrowth and immense trees, and was soft and slippery from recent high water.  My progress was soon interrupted by a stream, flowing sluggishly to my left.  I sought a crossing.  The stream was not deep, but the slippery banks gave me great difficulty in the darkness.  The water came to my waist; on the further side were hollows filled with standing water left by the freshet.  I had crossed the main branch of the Chickahominy.

Within a mile I expected to find Brook Run, behind which it was supposed the Confederate left extended, and where I must exercise the greatest care lest I run foul of some vedette.  How to avoid stumbling on one of them in the darkness, was a problem.  Very likely they were placed from a hundred to two hundred yards apart, and near the bank of the stream, if practicable, especially at night, for the stream itself would not only be their protection, but also, by its difficulty and its splashing, would betray any force which should attempt to cross to the south side.

But I found the creek very crooked, and I considered that a line of vedettes, two hundred yards apart by the course of the stream, would require probably a man to every fifty yards in a direct line, and such a line of vedettes could not well be maintained constantly—­never is maintained, I think, unless an enemy’s approach is momentarily feared, in which case you frequently have no vedettes at all.  Following up this thought I concluded that the vedettes were, most likely, watching their front from the inner bends of the stream, and that, at a bend which had its convex side toward the north, was my opportunity.