Since we didn’t have a map we had no idea where Army headquarters or the Balloon Corps might be, so I began creating a chart in my head of the streets we walked that first week. Where we were staying was in the colored section, Uptown, near the city’s northern boundaries, but I walked down to Mt. Vernon Square, to the President’s House at Lafayette Square, to the Capitol Building near where we first entered the city, to the Naval Observatory which perched on the edge of the Potomac. I took care to avoid attracting the notice of the soldiers, on guard nearly everywhere I wandered, same as I did the police, whose attention I crossed the street to evade. I spoke at length with no one except our people unless I had to, and none of them paid me any special mind. I remembered not to go beyond U Street north of where we were staying, nor anywhere near the Navy Yard, which was, Dandy warned, swimming and shooting distance from Virginia. He would come and go and somehow also knew his way around, which at first I didn’t understand since as far as I knew he hadn’t ever been beyond New-Jersey, but my father did used to say that like his father Dandy’s mind ran like the finest phaeton but he wasted it on crisscrossing the sewers. I knew never to ask what he was up to, especially when he returned one evening with papers saying he was “Anthony Smith,” and made me vow from now on when we were around other people I should make sure to call him that.
End of our first week I was walking back from the mall that stood in front of the Smithsonian castle — and not even Philadelphia had a building that could match — and an local officer ordered me to stop and when I tried to slip away seized my arm and demanded my documents. After he read through them the tiny blue eyes pricking his pink face scanned me up and down, then he reviewed the documents again, asking with a twang, “How do I know these papers are your’n?”
“Well, Sir,” I answered, “them is mine sure as Mr. Lincoln is the president and Washington is the capital of the United States of America.”
“Where were you born?” As he asked he hid the papers behind his back.
“Well, Sir, I was born free at my parents’ lodgings at 701 Spruce Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
He brought them back before him and read them carefully then concealed them again. “What date and year?”
“Well, Sir, I was born on December 18, 1842.” The officer again brought the certificate Dandy gave me from behind his back to study it, and I was glad I had studied it before the train left the Philly depot, since I actually was born in 1844, though in case I needed to be 18 to work Dandy had gotten somebody to add two years.
“So why are you down here in the capital? Philadelphia ain’t just walking distance. Between the ones of you fleeing across that river over there and the ones of you maybe sent up to spy, why in the Lord’s name should I think you’re telling the truth?”
“Well, Sir, I came down because as that other letter say I am to be employed down here by the scientist specified in it.”
He opened the other piece of paper and browsed it, and for a second I thought about handing him Mr. Linde’s carte de visite, but I decided to withhold that until absolutely necessary. “How do I know you didn’t memorize all this? Y’all can be so crafty sometimes. If you’re really free and from Pennsylvania and are working for this ‘scientist,’ read this paragraph aloud for me right now.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said, peering into the page, whose writing was swirling before me. “As things stand in our con-con-tinuing contri-tri-butions to Science in the De-fense of our UNION — this corps fortu-fortu-nately does need Hands, though I can-not but cert-cert-ify my Good-Will and a mini-scule Purse as guaran-tee….”
“I’ll be the devil,” he said, snatching the letter from me, and read it again himself. “So why aren’t you working with this scientist Linde and the Corps now?”
“Well Sir,” I replied, seeing he was softening, “I been trying to figure out where the Federal Army headquarters at so that I can find him. I had to pay my way down here to Washington, and now I got to find where the Balloon Corps is at.”
The officer turned on his heel and pointed in the direction of Lafayette Square telling me, “The War Department is just east of the President’s House, at Pennsylvania and G. You should go there straightaway.”
“Yes Sir,” I said. “I’m going there right now.”
“You had better, and I don’t want to see you wandering around here again. These days nobody needs any added mischief.” I bolted up 13th, feeling his eyes train a target on my back and turning every so often, real subtly, to check if he was still watching me. I nearly stumbled into the street as a carriage was approaching but righted myself and paused against a hitching post, looking back to find him gone. Only a short while after that I reached War Department. All kinds of people thronged out front, mostly guards and, to judge by the navy uniforms, military men. I spoke to a white guard stationed near the base of the main portico, then to another at the main door, spilling my story to each, mentioning Dr. Linde, Professor Lowe, the Balloon Corp. After skimming my letter the second one called over a young man my exact size and build who was a good three years older, whom I at first thought was white until I got a good look at his nose, lips and hair. The white guard said to him, “You heading to the Potomac office?” and the young man said with a lilt, “Yessir,” and the guard said, “Take this boy up there with you, and see that he speaks to someone about that letter.” The young man didn’t speak at first, he just reviewed me up and down as he was leading me to wherever we were going, but finally he paused and asked my name and where I was from. I told him and when I asked him the same question, he answered, “My name Nicholas, but they call me Nimrod.” I added, “Well they call me Red. You from here?” He told me he was originally from Annapolis, worked as a messenger, among other things, for the staff of the Army of the Potomac and General McClelland, adding that he had never heard of any Balloon Corps and wasn’t at all sure I was searching in the right place.
On the top floor after a guard examined Nimrod’s papers and I displayed mine and the carte de visite, he guided me at an office where I eventually spoke to several different people. No one had ever heard of Dr. Linde but when I mentioned Professor Lowe and the balloons finally one official knew exactly who and what I was talking about. He said the Corps was not part of the military, but then, another official entering the office overheard him and told me it was, under the aegis of the Topographical Engineers, or perhaps the Quartermaster Department, no the Signal Corps, no the Engineers, then he interrogated me and perused my papers, taking the letter and disappearing for a while, which made me start to fidget in fear that he would not return with it. Finally he did and told me I would have to wait two days to head down to where the Balloon Corps was stationed. I would accompany Nimrod when he carried messages down that way. I thanked the officer profusely, but he ordered me to get out of his office.