brought to Washington, and confined in Old Capitol Prison, principally in solitary cells. There was great satisfaction among the Union people of the town, but great indignation among Southern sympathizers. Presently a deputation from Baltimore came over to see President Lincoln. It was an outrage, they said; the gentlemen arrested were most respectable merchants and faultless citizens; and they demanded that they all be set instantly at liberty, and damages paid them. Mr. Lincoln sent the deputation over to the War Department, and Mr. Stanton, who had returned by this time, sent for me. "All Baltimore is coming here," he said. "Sit down and hear the discussion."
They came in, the bank presidents and boss merchants of Baltimore—there must have been at least $50,000,000 represented in the deputation—and sat down around the fire in the Secretary's office. At once they began to make their speeches, detailing the circumstances and the wickedness of this outrage. There was no ground for it, they said, no justification. After half a dozen of them had spoken, Mr. Stanton asked one after another if he had anything more to say, and they all said no. Then Stanton began, and delivered the most eloquent speech that I ever listened to. He described the beginning of the war, for which he said there was no justification: being beaten in an election was no reason for destroying the Government. Then he went on to the fact that half a million of our young men had been laid in untimely graves by this conspiracy of the slave interest. He outlined the whole conspiracy in the most solemn and impressive terms, and then he depicted the offense that this man Morse, aided by these several merchants, had committed. "Gentlemen," he said, "if you would like to examine the bills of what he was taking to the enemy, here they are."
When he had finished, the gentlemen, without answering a word, got up, and, one by one, went away. That was the only speech I ever listened to that cleared out the entire audience.
A PLUCKY SPY.[1]
Early in the winter of 1863-64, a curious thing happened in the secret service of the War Department. Some time in the February or March before, a slender and pre-possessing young fellow, between twenty-two and twenty-six, apparently, had applied at the War Department for employment as a spy within the Confederate lines.
The main body of the Army of Northern Virginia was then lying at Gordonsville, and the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac were at Culpeper Court House. General Grant had not yet come from the West to take command of the momentous campaign which finally opened with his movement into the Wilderness on the 4th of May.
The young man who sought this terrible service was well dressed and intelligent, and professed to be animated by motives purely patriotic. He was a clerk in one of the Departments. All that he asked was that he should have a horse, and an order which would carry him safely through the Federal lines; and, in return, he undertook to bring information from General Lee's army and from the government of the Confederacy in Richmond. He understood perfectly well the perilous nature of the enterprise he proposed.
Finding that the applicant bore a good character in the office where he was employed, it was determined to accept his proposal. He was furnished with a horse, an order that would pass him through the Union lines, and, also, I believe, with a moderate sum of money; and then he departed. Two or three weeks later, he reported at the War Department. He had been in Gordonsville and Richmond; had obtained the confidence of the Confederate authorities, and was the bearer of a letter from Mr. Jefferson Davis to Mr. Clement C. Clay, the agent of the Confederate government in Canada, then known to be stationed at St. Catherine's, not far from Niagara Falls. Mr. Clay had as his official associate Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, who had been Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of President Buchanan, and, like Mr. Clay, had been serving the Confederate government ever since its organization. The letter from Mr. Davis the young man exhibited, but only the outside of the envelope was examined. The address was in the handwriting of the Confederate chief, and the statement of our young adventurer that it was merely a letter of recommendation, advising Messrs. Clay and Thompson that they might repose confidence in the bearer, since he was ardently devoted to the Confederate cause and anxious to serve the great purpose that it had in view, appeared entirely probable; and the young man was allowed to proceed to Niag-
- ↑ This narrative was first printed in the "North American Review" for August, 1891.
