McDowell's forty thousand men were
moving on his old line of march straight from Washington. Their two
armies would unite before the city and circle it with an invincible wall
of fire and steel. Fremont, Milroy and Banks were sweeping through the
valley of the Shenandoah. Their armies would unite, break the
connections of the Confederacy at Lynchburg and the South would be
crushed.
That this would all be accomplished within thirty days he had the most
positive assurances from Washington. So sure was Miss Van Lew of
McClellan's triumphant entry into Richmond she had put her house in
order for his reception. Her parlor had been scrupulously cleaned. Its
blinds were drawn and the room dark, but a flag staff was ready and a
Union standard concealed in one of her feather beds. Over the old house
on Church Hill the emblem of the Nation would first be flung to the
breeze in the conquered Capital of the Confederacy.
The certainty of his discovery in the rush of the Union army into the
city was now the nightmare which haunted his imagination.
He could fight the Confederate Government on even terms. He asked no
odds. His life was on the hazard. Something more than the life of a
Union spy was at stake in his affair with Jennie.
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