The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[505] fellow, and seemed actually to believe his profession as matter of fact as any other, and frankly admitted it. A Jew was arrested and brought to prison charged with having come through the army lines from Dixie, and upon being searched, previous to assignment to quarters, was found to be wrapped in a long piece of muslin in which several hundred dollars in gold pieces were carefully sewed, and his misery in seeing them ripped ruthlessly from their hiding place was extreme, equaled only by the scorn which he regarded my receipt for the much-loved hoard. After a trial which restored him to freedom, however, he presented his scorned acknowledgment, and thought better of it when it returned to his possession his treasure. The war had made money plenty, and it often fell temporarily into strange and unaccustomed hands, and from prisoners charged with bounty frauds I received as high as twenty or thirty thousand dollars in notes and bonds — the results, doubtless, of their rascality. The jealousy of the authorities regarding the safe-keeping of this large amount of money is illustrated by the following incident: Standing in the prison yard upon one occasion while a detachment of prisoners were taking their daily airing, I was approached by one who begged a few minutes' conversation, the substance of which, after a slight preface, was the offer of five hundred dollars (which he held my receipt for, having given it up on his admission) if I would allow him to write a letter and forward it to its destination unread. Telling him I would communicate with him in regard to the matter later, he went to his room, from which I summoned him within an hour by the corporal of the guard and confined him alone in a small room on the ground floor, without windows, save in the door, and kept him there a week on strict bread and water diet, and a few days after he was released from prison upon an order from the War Department. Nor did I learn till long after that he was a Secret Service Agent and imprisoned specially to make me the offer he did, and that his report of his success was received with roars of laughter from his superior officers.

The fidelity with which the prisons were guarded is attested by the few escapes that occurred, only two that were successful taking place during my command of over a year. One from Carroll Prison of a Virginia colonel, who lowered himself from a third-story window with a rope made from his blanket; which rope, by the way, proved too short, and came near proving fatal to both life and escape. The night selected for the attempt was dark and rainy, and he carefully descended hand over hand till he felt the end of the rope; to reascend was impossible, and there was nothing for it but to drop, which he