Both his staff and mine retired to the camp-fire some yards in front of the tent, thinking our conversation should be private.

There was a stump a little to one side, and between the front of the tent and camp-fire.
One of my staff, Colonel T.S.Bowers, saw what he took to be a man seated on the ground and leaning against the stump, listening to the conversation between Meade and myself.

He called the attention of Colonel Rowley to it.

The latter immediately took the man by the shoulder and asked him, in language more forcible than polite, what he was doing there.

The man proved to be Swinton, the "historian," and his replies to the question were evasive and unsatisfactory, and he was warned against further eaves-dropping.
The next I heard of Mr.Swinton was at Cold Harbor.