6
     Ripley�s Antecedents.  Speculations.
at West Point, behaved with bravery in the
Mexican war, written a good history of it, very
eulogistic of General Wool; gone to England
and Russia as agent for Sharpe�s rifles during
the Crimean war, started a newspaper in
Baltimore, in which a good deal of somebody�s
(not Ripley�s) money had been sunk and
then gone to Charleston, to look out for chances.
Add to this that Ripley had a Baltimore wife,
who didn�t play Lucretia during his absence in
Europe or afterwards (which Colt spoke of
at Charleston and which Foster confirmed)
and that�s all I gathered of him.         Foster
thinks highly of Beauregard�s military efficiency,
believes the South is better-officered than the
North, and condemns, by wholesale, the appoint-
ment of �politicians� to command of troops.    He
thinks furthermore that the North may have
the worst of it at the beginning.           When
we got up to the city, there was a Southern pri-
vateer, �No 1,� � the first under Jeff Davis� letters
of marque � called the Savannah, from Char-
leston, with the Southern Confederacy flag
flying, below the Stars and Stripes; in token
of her being a prize.              In-doors all the
hot, midsummery evening, which closed in a 
grand thunderstorm.