How to make XML response useable

I am using HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse to POST data to a web service and receive the resulting XML response. I have never worked with XML before (only been coding for a few months) so I have been peicing everything together from research and trial/error. At this point I have the code up to the point of sending the data, receiving the response and putting the response into an Xdocument. Now I need to grab bits of it to put into variables so I can make some decisions of the next step, based on the values in the XML response. This is what a common response looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <HistoryResponse>
  <ResponseType>resultsList</ResponseType>
  <Matches>0</Matches>
  <SessionID>75803234r23df3de</SessionID>
  <RecStart>0</RecStart>
  <ClientCode></ClientCode>
  <Results></Results>
</HistoryResponse>

For example, I need to get the value of 'Matches' and do stuff depending on the value.

This code works and is currently storing the XML in the Xdocument called resultLoad. I want to be able to search the document for the <Matches> value, then put that value in a variable, and so forth. The research I have done says to put the whole response in an XML doc, save it somewhere, then use LINQ to XML to query it, but I really dont want to do all that. i just want to do it all in memory. Here is the code to this point.

    public ActionResult SubmitToCris(NewApplicantViewModel model)
    {
        // Setup my variables
        string First = model.PersonModel.FirstName;
        string Last = model.PersonModel.LastName;
        string dob = model.PersonModel.DateofBirth.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");

        string historyURL = "https://www.nunya.com/XMLServer/XMLServer.cgi";
        //Build my data to be sent in key/value pair string 
        string postData = "MaxRecords=0&UserID=skapi&Password=sk12024&Version=2.0&RequestType=searchName&FirstName="
                                    + First + "&LastName="
                                    + Last + "&DOB="
                                    + dob;

        //Create the web request, populate the header info
        HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(crisURL);
        request.Method = "POST";
        request.ContentLength = postData.Length;
        request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

        // Send it
        using (Stream writeStream = request.GetRequestStream())
        {
            byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(postData);
            writeStream.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
            writeStream.Close();
        }

        // Receive the response and do stuff with it.
        string result = string.Empty;

        using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
        {
            using( Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream() )
            {
                using( StreamReader readStream = new StreamReader(responseStream, Encoding.UTF8))
                {
                    result = readStream.ReadToEnd();
                }

            }
        }

        XDocument resultLoad = Xdocument.Parse(result);
        ViewBag.XmlResponse = resultLoad.ToString();

        return View();

    }