Chapter 2 - Page 2

times Captain Harding had
almost been among those who were not counted by the terrible Grant; but in
these combats where he never spared himself, fortune favored him till the
moment when he was wounded and taken prisoner on the field of battle near
Richmond. At the same time and on the same day another important personage
fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than Gideon
Spilen, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been ordered to follow
the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern armies.

Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American
chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain exact
information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible
time. The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are genuine
powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with. Gideon Spilett
ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic,
prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the
whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in
action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of
information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a perfect
treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious subjects, of the unpublished,
of the unknown, and of the impossible. He was one of those intrepid
observers who write under fire, "reporting" among bullets, and to whom
every danger is welcome.

He also had been in all the battles, in the first rank, revolver in one
hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble. He
did not fatigue the wires with incessant telegrams, like those who speak
when they have nothing to say, but each of his notes, short, decisive, and
clear, threw light on some important point. Besides, he was not wanting in
humor. It was he who, after the affair of the Black River, determined at
any cost to keep his place at the wicket of the telegraph office, and after
having announced to his journal the result of the battle, telegraphed for
two hours the first chapters of the Bible. It cost the New York Herald two
thousand dollars, but the New York Herald published the first intelligence.

Gideon Spilett was tall. He was rather more than forty years of age.
Light whiskers bordering on red surrounded his face. His eye was steady,
lively, rapid in its changes. It was the eye of a man accustomed to take in
at a glance all the details of a scene. Well built, he was inured to all
climates, like a bar of steel hardened in cold water.

For ten years Gideon Spilett had been the reporter of the New York
Herald, which he enriched by his letters and drawings, for he was as
skilful in the use of the