fully,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN WOOLLEY,
Bvt. Brigadier General U. S. Vols.
Provost Marshal General M. M. D.

The field was entirely new to me. All the way to Cincinnati and the rest
of the way to Carlisle, Illinois, I put in much of my time in
speculating as to the best course to adopt on landing in a small town,
among a lot of villagers, who were banded together in this scheme. My
name was to be Comings, and I came from New York; that was all settled
in my mind; but what was my business there? I expected to be there a few
days, and there was the rub; finally, after failing to fix up a story I
concluded to "keep mum," entirely. Later you will see the fix which that
conclusion came near leading me into.

I arrived there at night. I asked the landlord not to put me high up in
the hotel, and he didn't; I learned the next morning that the hotel was
only two stories high. I lounged about the tavern and the village two or
three days, making myself aware of the surroundings. I tramped out to
the fork of the Kaskaskia river, where the affidavits alleged the boy
was buried in 1836. The river was a muddy little brook. No grave was to
be found, but some little distance away was a burying ground. I went
there searching for the grave. I found it not, but lying up against a
fence was a headstone having the boy's name on it, and the date of his
death.

In walking about the village I had many times passed the residence of
the woman who had framed up the claim; she had noticed me. I wrote one
of my old officers in Baltimore to wire me, in language about like
this:

"See Mrs. ----, confer fully and write me."

I instructed him to sign John H. Ing's name to it. Mr. Ing was this
woman's attorney.

Equipped with this telegram I would be prepared to introduce myself to
the woman as apparently having come there in the interest of Mr. Ing,
her attorney, to look over the ground to see if matters alleged in the
affidavits were susceptible of demonstration.

While waiting for the telegram I obtained the confidence of the
postmaster. I impressed him that I was an agent of the Post Office
Department, seeking to learn if he remembered a letter coming to his
office addressed to "Veritas" (Sterling had replied to Veritas); he,
having the too frequent curiosity of a village postmaster, said he
remembered it well, and told me who the recipient was, and where he
lived. He promised to keep secret my mission, and h