desirous that you accept it."

He went away leaving me rather upset. I did not sleep very soundly that
night. "So," I argued to myself, "it has come to this, that Forney and
Cameron, lifelong enemies, have made friends and are going to rob the
Government--one clerk of the House, the other Secretary of War--and I, a
mutual choice, am to be the confidential middle man." I still had a home in
Tennessee and I rose from my bed, resolved to go there.

I did not keep the proposed appointment for next day. As soon as I could
make arrangements I quitted Washington and went to Tennessee, still
unchanged in my preconceptions. I may add, since they were verified by
events, that I have not modified them from that day to this.

I could not wholly believe with either extreme. I had perpetrated no wrong,
but in my small way had done my best for the Union and against secession. I
would go back to my books and my literary ambitions and let the storm blow
over. It could not last very long; the odds against the South were too
great. Vain hope! As well expect a chip on the surface of the ocean to lie
quiet as a lad of twenty-one in those days to keep out of one or the other
camp. On reaching home I found myself alone. The boys were all gone to the
front. The girls were--well, they were all crazy. My native country was
about to be invaded. Propinquity. Sympathy. So, casting opinions to the
winds in I went on feeling. And that is how I became a rebel, a case of
"first endure and then embrace," because I soon got to be a pretty good
rebel and went the limit, changing my coat as it were, though not my better
judgment, for with a gray jacket on my back and ready to do or die, I
retained my belief that secession was treason, that disunion was the height
of folly and that the South was bound to go down in the unequal strife.