I was bound for the South. He gave me directions for getting there, and told me that the best route to get to the Southern Army was Through Kentucky, by way of Louisville; he said he would introduce a particular friend of his to me with whom I could go to Louisville. This friend was Dr. W. T. Thornton, formerly of Henry County, Mo., but now a refugee and resident of Louisville. Mr. Taylor told me that the doctor was true Southern man. He also a sound Southern man.

Fearing that I might be recognized in Saint Louis by some of the members of this organization, should I be initiated, I desired to go to Kentucky, and wished to use the doctor as a reference there. The doctor promised upon my arrival at Louisville to do all for me in his power to procure for me the information I desired, and to enable me to get into this secret organization, that I might thereby be enabled to recognize friends from foes. He and Mr. Taylor both insisted upon my becoming a member of this organization, telling me that I had as much to fear from my friends as from my enemies. After dining with Mr. Taylor, by invitation, as a rebel, I parted from him and Doctor Thornton, with the understanding that I should meet the doctor in Louisville in the course of the next week, I telling Him - as I was not ready to leave the city then - that (should go by way of Springfield, Il. I requested the doctor, if possible, to procure me the services of some one who designed going South, who was full of boldness and experience. I made this request in order to convince him that I was in earnest in going South, and further that it was probable, if he procured such a man, I could elicit from him the elements of this secret organization without being compelled to take any obnoxious oaths.

I have made the foregoing statement in order to show why I went to Louisville to get into this organization in preference to entering it in this city.

May 3. - I left Saint Louis for Louisville with the understanding that I should stop at the National Hotel, having promised to meet a friend there on Thursday, the 5th.

May 4. - I arrived at Louisville this morning. I called on Doctor Thornton, who resides at the corner of Eighth and Broadway. He returned from Saint Louis while I was there and said he had found me a friend - meaning a Confederate soldier of the description I had required - and that we would go and see him in the morning. The name of this man, as he was introduced to me, was Foster. He is from Louisiana, and purported to have been a deserter from the rebel army. He told me the manner in which he procured a passport to come North: He sent a man to the authorities at New Orleans, who obtained a pass in the name of Foster and then gave him the passport, which embraced no descriptive list and therefore was transferable to any one. By his means he came North. He had been in Saint Louis - I suppose as a spy. He told me that he was the son of a planter; that his mother was a widow and was then in Europe; that he had formerly belonged to the infantry, but at the time of his desertion - which he said was induced from his having had to take the life of a Confederate officer - he belonged to the cavalry of Fitzhugh Lee. He said that he could tell Southern men from their appearance; that he judged Doctor Thornton to be a Southern man, having me with him on a steamer going from Saint Louis to Louisville; that he had also made the acquaintance of a man by the name of McCormick; that McCormick was in possession of the secrets of this organization. I explained to